mayne Heresies or Paradoxes wholy impugned gainsaid and contradicted both by Protestant and Catholicke For this Man in this respecte is to be styled rather an open Hereticke then a Protestant euen in the censure of the Protestants themselues Therefore to conclude this last obseruation Euen as when beasts of seueral Kyndes or species do coople together that which is ingendred is of a third Kinde diuers from them both So here that Religion or fayth which is as it were propagated from the mixture of contrary Religions must be a beliefe different from them al. These things being premised now M. Doctour or either of you two may begin to instance in Protestant Professours for euery age And I shall reply therto as my iudgment and reading wil best inable me OCHINVS I do like well of these your animaduertions and they are able in a cleare iudgement to fanne away imperfect and faulty instances from such as be true and perfect MICHAEAS Before any of you begin your discours of Instancing I must demand of you al as Cardinal Bellarmyne did in his late discours with D. Whitakers whether you wil be content to stand to the authority of your owne learned Brethren in al the following passages betweene vs D. REYNOLDS I here answere for vs al We will indisputably stand to our owne mens learned iudgmeÌ„ts And if you can conuince either our future examples or our cause in generall from our Protestants penns we yeald you the victory For I do hould with Osiander the Protestant that the Confession and testimony of an Aduersary is of greatest authority And therefore Peter Martyr truly saith surely among other testimonyes that is of greatest weight which is giuen by the Enemyes And D. Bancrofs to omit al other Protestants in this point confirmeth the same thus writing Let vs take hould of that which they haue granted you may be bould to build thereupon for a truth that they are so constrained to yeeld vnto Which kinde of proofe is no lesse warranted by the Auncient Fathers for Ireneus saith It is an vnanswerable proofe which bringeth attestation from the Aduersaries themselues And Nazianzen pronounceth thus hereof It is the greatest cuâ—ning and wisdome of speech to bynd the Aduersary with his owne words So full you see Michaeas I am in this point But now let vs come to the maine matter To produce instances of Protestancy shal be my peculiar Scene And that I may the better marshal and incampe as it were my examples thereby the more forcibly to inuade your iudgment I will begin with the later times of the Church and so ascend vpwards And first for these last threescore yeares the Gospell of Christ hath enioyed here in England to forbeare all other Countreyes it Visibility in it full Orbe all writers of these dayes and other Nations acknowledging no lesse Againe in K. Edward the sixt his time this worthy Man Ochinus here present backed with the like endeauours of the learned Peter Martyr did so plant our Protestant fayth in our Nation as that infinite most remarkable Professours thereof did instantly growne like roses after a long cold or tempest blooming forth through the heate of the Sunne with refeâ—erence of which Professours Ochinus may iustly apply to himselfe the words of Aenias Quorum pars magna fui MICHAEAS Concerning the Professours of Protestancy here in England since Queene Elizabeth came to the Crowne I easily grant they haue been most Visible as I gather out of your English Chronicles And thus I freely confesse that Protestancy hath continued in England some threescore and seauen yeares But where you say that Protestancy I meane as it comprehendeth all the Articles taught at this day for Protestancy and which necessarily concurre to the making of a perfect complete Protestant was fully taught and beleiued in K. Edward his dayes I absolutely deny OCHINVS Will you deny Michaeas so manifest a verity whereas myselfe was not only an eyewitnesse in those times but If I may speake in modesty a greate Cause thereof What will you not deny if you deny such illustrious Trueths and what hope can we haue of your bettering by this our disputation MICHAEAS Good Ochinus beare me not downe with astreame of vaunting words the refuse of speech but if you can with force of argument I peremptorily deny the former point and for iustifying this my deniall I wil recurre to the Communion Booke set out in K. Edwards time with the approbation and allowance as D. Doue a Protestant affirmeth of Peter Martyr your Cooperatour Which Booke we must presume in al reason was made according to the publike fayth of the King and the Realme established in those tymes and the rather considering that the said Communion Booke for it greater authority was warranted in the Kings time by Act of Parliament Now this Communion Booke or publicke Lyturgy of the fayth of England in those dayes being printed in folio by Edward Whit-church anno 1549. pertaketh in many points with our Roman Religion For it maketh speciall defence for Ceremonyes and prescribeth that the Eucharist shal be consecrated with the signe of the Crosse It commandeth consecration of the Water of Baptisme with the signe of the Crosse It alloweth of Chrisme as also of the Childs annoynting and Exorcisme In that booke mention is made of prayer for the dead and intercession and offering vp of our Prayers by Angells It deffendeth Baptisme giuen by Laypersons in time of necessity and the grace of that Sacrament as also Confirmation of children and strength giuen them thereby It mentioneth according to the custome vsed in tyme at Masse at this very day the Priests turning sometimes to the Altar and sometimes to the People It ordayneth that answerably yet to our Catholike custome Alleluya should be said from Easter to Trinity sunday It prescribeth the Priest blessing of the Bryde brydegroome with the signe of the Crosse It alloweth the Priests absolution of the sicke Penetent with these particular words By the authority committed vnto me I absolute thee of all thy sinns It mentioneth a speciall Confession of the sicke Penitent And lastly it commandeth the annoynting of the sicke Person which we Catholicks call the Sacrament of Extreme Vnction So little reason Ocbinus you see you haue to affirme that the Protestancy of the present Church of England is the same which was mantained and publikely established by King Edward OCHINVS Indeede I grant the Communion booke was then made by the consent of the Parliament but I instructed those with whom I conuersed to reiect those superstitions their confirmed D. REYNOLDS Well let that passe It auayleth not much whether Protestancy was here in England at those dayes or no since it is certaine it was then most fully dilated in many other Countryes by the late afore raysing vp of Luther who was miraculously sent by the Holy
not beene afore beleeued From which it euidently followeth that the Professours of the affirmatiue doctrines were that society of Christians out of which as more ancient the former Hereticks originally departed and went out And with this most remarkeable Men I end remitting to your owne cleare eyed iudgmeÌ„ts now after the perusing of this smale Treatise whether it was the present Church of Rome or the Protestant Church which hath made this so much inculcated change and alteration from that Faith which first was preached and taught in the sayd Church of Rome by the Apostles Laus Deo et Beatae Virgini Mariae THE SECOND PART OF THE CONVERTED IEVV OR THE SECOND DIALOGVE OF MICHAEAS THE IEW Betweene Michaeas the former Conuerted Iew. Ochinus who first planted Protestancy in England in King Edward the sixt his raygne Doctour Reynolds of Oxford Neuserus cheife Pastour of Heidelberge in the Palatinate The Contents hereof the Argument following will show Here is adioyned an Appendix wherin is taken a short Suruey contayning a full Answere of a Pamphlet intituled A Treatise of the Visibility and Succession of the True Church in all ages Printed Anno. 1624. Si dixerint vobis Ecce in deserto est nolite exire Ecce in Penetralibus noâ—â—â—e credere Math. 24. PERMISSV SVPERIORVM Anno. M. DC XXX THE ARGVMENT MICHAEAS after the Disputation had betweene Cardinall Bellarmine and D. Whitakers touching Romes chang in Religion through which he was first made Catholicke and in short tyme after made Priest trauelleth into many Countries to see their Vniuersities and places of learning At the length he arriueth in England where from visiting of Cambridg he cometh to Oxford Then he findeth D. Reynolds Ochinus and Neuserus They mooue him to become Protestant He answereth that the want of performace of the Prophecies touching the Visibility of Christs Church in the Protestant Church induceth him besides other reasons to continue Catholicke Hereupon they all begin a Disputation touching the Visibility of the Protestant Church for former ages prefixing therto by mutuall consent a short Discourse of the Necessity of a continuall Visibility of the true Church Michaeas so fully displayeth the insufficiency of the pretended Instances of Protestants and of all other Arguments vrged for proofe thereof That insteed of Michaeas being to be made a Protestant by this Disputation Ochinus and Neuserus as not acknowledging the present Roman Church to be the true Church and seing the Prophecies not to be fulfilled in the Protestant Church do finally come to this point to wit absolutely and openly to affirme that the Church of Christ as not hauing the Prophecies accomplished in it which were foretould to be performed in the true Church of God touching it Visibilitie is a false Church and that our Sauiour Christ was a Seducer Hereupon they both protest that from that tyme forward they do renounce the ChristiaÌ„ fayth and do embrace the Iewish Religion and so teaching Circumcision and reuiuing the Old law they do turne blasphemous Iewes or Turks Michaeas and D. Reynolds do vse vehement perswasions to them to the contrary but their words preuayle not and so the disputatioÌ„ breaketh off What courses Ochinus and Neuserus do after take for their spreading of Iudaisme is hereafter set downe And all the passages of their Reuolt are manifested partly out of their owne wrytings and partly from the acknowledgment of diuers learned Protestants so as their Apostacy is not feigned but true and reall THE SECOND PART OF THE CONVERTED IEW WHEREIN IS DEMONSTRATED that the Protestant Church hath euer remayned Inuisible or rather hath not bene in Being since the Apostles daies till Luthers reuolt DOCTOVR REYNOLDS MICHAEAS God saue you I much reioyce to see you here in England And I congratulate your coming to this our Vniuersity of Oxford I haue often heard of you through occasion of your former entercourse of disputes with my Brother D. Whitakers though it was neuer my fortune to see you before this present MICHAEAS I greatly thanke you M. Doctour for this your kindnesse touching my coming hither you may know that since my last seeing of D. Whitakers I haue passed through diuers Countries and Nations moued thereunto notwithstanding my greate age through my owne innate desire of seeing places and Vniuersitis of erudition and learning Now at the last I am arriued in England and am immediatly comne froÌ„ visiting the Vniuersity of Cambridge a place in my iudgment much exceeding all prayses heretofore deliuered of it But may I make bolde to enquire of you who those two gentlemen here present are whose externall comportments do euen depose that their mindes are fayrely enriched with many Intellectuall good parts for it is certaine that a mans outward cariadge is commonly the true shadow of the minde cast by the light of the inward soule DOCTOVR REYNOLDS You haue coniectured aright For both these are men of great emineÌ„cy for learuing The elder of theÌ„ is called Ochinus who being accompained with the learned Peter Martyr did in King Edward the sixts tyme first plant in England the doctrine of Caluin after the Romish Religion was once abolished One whose presence in those dayes made EnglaÌ„d happie whose after absence made it Vnfortunate whom all Italy for he is an Italian could not equall This other is Neuserus the chiefe Pastour of Heidelberge in the Palatinate a man whoÌ„ Nature his owne Industrie haue not placed in any lower roome of knowledge for he is transcendently learned and hath much labored in dilating the Ghospel of Christ Both these men are reciding here for the time by reason of some late emergent occations and businesse tending to the aduancement of Christs Church I could wish Michaeas you were acquainted with them MICHAEAS Gentlemen I greete you both in the salutation of the chiefe Apostle gratia vobis pax multiplicetur And I am glad that I am comne to that place where the very wals and streets in regard of such mens presence do euen Eccho forth learning and all good literature OCHINVS Worthy Michaeas for so I heare you called I willingly entertayne your acquaintance for learning I prize highly in any man as holding it the chiefest riches next to true Religion wherewith the vnderstanding is endowed NEVSERVS And I as happily do congratulate your arriuall here for what company of men are more to be esteemed then the Society of learned Men where themselues though few in number are a sufficient Auditory to themselues Satis magnum alteri alter theatrum they interchangeably giuing and receiuing all content by their leatned discourses DOCTOVR REYNOLDS Haue you had Michaeas a full sight of our Vniuersity Colledges If not we are ready to accompany you throughout all the chiefe places thereof MICHAEAS I haue already seene them all and particularly your late erected schooles wherin are dayly ventilated all questions worthy the iudiceous eares of Schollers and your spatious liberary the very
amazement to see in a most noble Country where the Ghospell which forbiddeth all Rapine is presumed to be truly preached that men free not borne Bondslaues should thus in body and state only for feare of offending God and desire of sauing their soules lye prostrate to the depradations robberyes of certaine hungery Refuse and Outcasts of men who make show at least though wrongfully to warrant all these their pillages by force of the statute Law though otherwise prohibited by all Diuine and humane Law Si est dolor sicut dolor horum And if it fortune that any Priest be taken or Recusants do appeare then is the Pryest assured and the Catholicks in danger to be committed to a darke and loathsome prison there to remayne the Priest sometymes in fettars so long as it shall please the subordinate Magistrate His Maiesty who is most proue to mercy pitty and commiseration being wholy ignorant of such outrages and proceedings But My Lord. How base so euer the Priests Catholicks of England seeme to be in the eyes of their Aduersaryes yet no doubt their state is most gratefull through this their imprisonment in the sight of God and honorable in the iudgment of all foraine Catholicke nations who in regard of the others endurance may iustly apply to the said imprisoned Priests Catholicks that sentence of a most auncient Father Carcer habet tenebras sed lumen estis ipsi habet vincula sed vos soluti Deo estis triste illic expirat sed vos odor estis suauitatis LORD CHEIFE-IVSTICE Theese exorbitancyes of proceedings Michaeas whereof you speake if any such be the Law chastizeth and the Offendours are punishable neither doth the supreme Magistrat geue allowance of them Yet heare Michaeas you are to remember that though wrong be not to be recompensed with wrong and Cruelty with Iniustice The tymes haue bene I meane in the reigne of Queene Marie When the Professours of our Religion did not only suffer losse of Goods but euen death itselfe And therefore there appeareth lesse reason why you Romanists should so tragically complayne at your present afflictions Since in so doing you are lyke to those Men who perpeâ—rate impietyes yet expostulate of Wrong MICHAEAS Indeede my Lord I grant that this is the vulgar recrimination often vrged and reinforced by the Protestants for the more depressing of our pressures in the eye of others yet though I will not vndertake the defence of all the procedures of those tymes myselfe being a stranger both to the Nation and to the affayres of those dayes Neuerthelesse let it not be offensiue vnto you my honerable Lord if I vnfould the reason why such actions in that Queens tyme may stand lesse subiect to the censure of an iniustifiable punishment then theese in the dayes of Queene Elizabeth and since The reason is this In Q. Marâ—es tyme the Professours of any Religion different from the Catholicke and Roman Religion were punished by certaine Canon and Imperiall Lawes made by most auncient Popes Emperours they not then hauing any forknowledg that Protestancy should rather sway in these dayes then any other erroneous fayth And this they did in regard that all such different Religions were reputed and â—oulden as Innouations and most repugnant to the auncient Catholicke fayth Now that ProtestaÌ„cy was to be accounted in Queenes Maryes reigne a mere Innouation in faith as well as any other sect appeareth euen from the free acknowledgment of the learned Protestants who teach expressly that for theese foureteene or fyfteene hundred yeeres the ProtestaÌ„t fayth was neuer so much as heard or thought of till Luthers dayes I will heare content myselfe for greater breuity with the authorityes of two or three Protestants Do we not then find M. Parkins thus to coÌ„fesse hereof For many hundred yeres our Church was not visible to the World an vniuersal Apostasy ouer spreading the whole face of the Earth And doth not Sebastianus Francus the Protestant confesse the same in theese words For certaine the externall Church togeather with the Sacramenti vanished away presently after the Apostles departure and that for theese foureteene hundred yeres the Church hath not beene externall and Visible In lyke sort D. Fulke speaking of the Protestant Church doth he not thus wryte The true Church decayed immediatly after the Apostles tymes A verity confessed by Luther hymselfe thus vaunting of his owne supposed true faith Christum anobis primo vulgaâ—um audemus gloriari We dare boast that Christ was first preached by vs. Thus then we see that Protestancy was punished in Q. Maryes reigne as an Innouation in fayth and religion neuer afore that tyme dreamed of But now the case is farre otherwise touching the afflictions layed vpon the Catholicks for professing of their fayth since they are punished by certaine Parlamental statuts only decreed not past some threescore yeres since by the authority of a Woman Prince against a religion which by the learned Aduersaries lyke acknowledgment hath possessed all Christendome theese many hundred yeres and indeed so many hundred yeres as the Protestant Church is confessed by them to haue bene latent and inuisible And therefore those statâ—â—s were decreed not against the Catholicke Religion as against an Innouation but as against the till then only and sole Religion professed by all the Christiaâ—s through out the whole world To this end we find M. Napper a learned Protestant thus acknowledging Betweene the yeres of Christ 300. and 316. the Antichristian Papisticall reigne began reigning vniuersally without any debatible contradiction one thousand two hundred sixty yeres And as conspiring with the former Protestant herein the Centurists do euen from the tymes of Constantyne charge both hym and euery age and Century since till Luthers dayes with the Profession of our present Roman Religion Thus now your Lordship may clearly discouer the greate disparity betwene the proceedings of Queene Mary and Q. Elizabeth Since in the former Queens tyme the Lawes wheareby Sectaries were punished for their Religion were instituted many hundred yeres since In this later Q. raigne the Statuts were first made at the beginning of her comming to the Crowne which is yet in the memory of eich Man being but of reasonable greate yeres Those lawes were enacted by Popes and generall â—ouncells to whose charge and incumbency the burden of Religion is peculiarly by God committed secunded otherwise by the secular authority of Emperours and particularly of 〈◊〉 Valentinian and Marcian Theese were first inuented by a Woman and a Parlament of Lay Persons the incompetent iudges of fayth and Religion Breifly by the former Decrees a Religion confessed by the cheife Professours of it to be neuer heard of at lest for foureteene hundred yeres together and thearefore to be an innouation of fayth which is held by Catholicks to be a destruction of fayth necessary to Soules health is interdicted and prohibited By theese later
THE CONVERTED IEW OR CERTAINE DIALOGVES BETWEEâ— MICHEAS A LEARNED IEW. And others touching diuers points of Religion controuerted betweene the Catholicks and Protestants Written by M. IOHN CLARE a Catholicke Priest of the Society of IESVS Dedicated to the two Vniuersities of OXâ—â—RD and CAMBRIDGE The leafe following sheweth the Interlocutours 〈…〉 Iudaeis nou a lux â—riri visa est Hesther 8. PERMISSV SVPERIORVM Anno. M. DC XXX The Interlocutours of euery Dialogue 1. In the first Dialogue is disputed whether the Church of Rome hath made any change in fayth and Religion since the first plantation of it by the Apostles It is proued that it hath not The Interlocutours are Cardinall Bellarmyne of worthy memory Michaeas a learned Iewish Rabine Doctour Whitakers of Cambridge Ad Romanos perfidia non potest habere accessum Cyprian lib. 1. epist 3. 2. In the second Dialogue entituled The second part of the Conuerted Iew is discussed whether in euery age since the Apostles or rather whether but in any one Age sinâ—e that tyme till Luthers dayes there can be giuen any Instances of Professours of Protestancy It is proued that no such Instances can be giuen The Interlocutours Michaeas the foresaid Iew. Ochinus who first planted Protestancy in England in King Edward the sixt his raigne Doctour Reynolds of Oxford Neuserus Chiefe Pastour of Heidelberg in the Palatinat Si dixerint vobis Ecce in deserto est nolite exire Ecce in penetratibus nolite credere Math. 24. 3. In the third and last Dialogue styled The arraingnment of the Conuerted Iew. It is discoursed Whether the Protestants of the Catholiks do stand more chargeable with disloyalty to their lawfull Princes It is proued that the Protestants stand more chargeable In this last dialogue are diuers other points of Catholike Religion breifly handled The Interlocutours The right Honourable the Lord Cheife Iustice of England Michaeas the former Iew. M. Vicechancelour of Oxford Vidi mulierem ebriam de sanguine Sanctorum Apocalyp 17. THE ARGVMENT OF THE FIRST DIALOGVE MICHAEAS a learned Iewish Rabine by his diligent comparing of the Prophecies of the Old Testament touching IESVS CHRIST with the exact accomplishment of them recorded in the New Testament forsaketh his former Iudaisme and imbraceth the Christian Religion But in obseruing diuers differences touching faith among Christians and particularly among the Catholiks and Protestants knoweth not to whether side to range himselfe At this tyme it so faleth out that there is a generall meeting of many famous learned Men of all Religions in the greate Citty of Cosmopolis in Vtopia among whom Cardinall Bellarmyne and Doctour Whitakers are thither comne Michaeas hastneth thither and imparteth to the said Cardinall and Doctour his present state openeth to them his vncertainty whether to embrace the Catholike fayth or Protestancy The Cardinall and the Doctour according to the different Principles of each others religion propound to him different meanes of setling his iudgement in poynts of fayth Michaeas for some peculiar reasons forbeareth both their directions He reduceth the tryall of all to this one head to wit that whereas he fyndeth in the New Testament that the true fayth was once planted by the Apostles in Rome He saith that if it can be proued that this fayth euer altered since the Apostles tymes he will become a Protestant if not he meaneth to be a Roman Catholike Hereupon he earnestly entreateth the Cardinall and the Doctour that they would enter into dispute touching the change of fayth in the Church of Rome They both accord to his request and instantly begin a serious graue discourse touching this subiect Cardinall Bellarmyne so presseth Doctour Whitakers with weight of arguments by discouering the weaknes of the Doctours answeres and Obiections as that in the end the Doctour entring into greate intemperance of words against the Church of Rome abruptly breaketh off his discourse and suddenly departeth Michaeas as conuinced with the force of the Cardinals disputation is resolued to become a Roman Catholike and so accordingly receaueth in the end in the Cathedrall Church of Cosmopolis his Baptisme by the hands of the Cardinall by whom also in some short tyme after he is made Priest Thus far concerning the fiction of this first Dialogue TO THE TWO MOST FAYRE SISTERS THE TWO MOST ILLVSTRIOVS VNIVERSITIES OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDG MOST remarkable and learned Academians in whose due prayses I could willingly here insist were it not that I loath all show of oylye assentation You may be here aduertized touching the ensuing Treatises that I haue made choice to set them downe rather in method of Dialogues then in any other forme of style Because in this ony delicate fastidious age which is quickly cloyed with any thing not accompanyed with Variety it is obserued that interlocutory Periods and vicissitude or alternation of turnes in speech are more gratefull and pleasing then any long wearisome continued and vninterrupted discourse Though the subiect of these Treatises be seuerall mayne points and Controuersies in fayth and consequently Points of Religion and Diuinity yet I presume none of you is eyther so froward or so ignorant as to depraue and calumniate the Methode here vsed by saying that we are not to inuulgar the Mysteryes of sacred Diniuity by way of Poeticall fiction of Dialogues in forging that to be which indeed is not Which aspersion of any such Critick is easily wyped away by the warrantable examples in this kind of S. Ierome Theodoret S. Gregory the Great and others who were not afrayd to treate of the highest matters of fayth in forme of Dialogues Againe such an inconsiderate assertion must needs condemne Poetry in generall seeing Dialogues are a kind of Poetry which how great an errour it were might easily appeare in that Poëtry is masked Philosophy Philosophy Natures true History Nature Gods seruiceable Agent or Handmayd Besids I am of iudgment that the Body of any long Discourse like an vnformed Chäos is best brought into an Orbe of forme and Order by help of interlocutions And lastly admit this kind of Wryting were strange and vnusuall and chiefly sorting to subiects of lesser importance as indeed it is not yet here we must remember that a Phantastike often begins a fashion which graue Men not to be thought Phantasticks are in the end content to follow Now to approach neerer the seuerall subiects handled in all these Dialogues In the first is disputed a Controuersy much agitated and tossed betweene the Catholiks and the Protestants to wit touching the change of fayth in the Church of Rome The Interlocutours are Cardinall Bellarmyne that Heresimastix Michaeas a learned Iewish Rabin and Doctour Whitakers of Cambridg The place of this conference I haue made to be the great citty Cosmopolis in Vtopia since an imaginary place best sorteth to an imaginary disputation in respect of the persons feigned The Cardinall iustifyeth the Catholiks position videlicet that no change in fayth and Religion hath bene made in
Faith Secondly we will enquire and set downe the acknowledged continuance of that time during all which season the now present Faith of Rome hath continued That is how longe Papistry as you commonly tearme it hath bene publikly professed and taught throughout all Christendome Thirdly and lastly we will then take a view of the times betweene these two former seuerall times for these two times being once acknowliged on all sides to wit the time during which the Church of Rome confessedly kept her first Faith taught by the Apostles and the time during which the present Romane Faith hath continued from this day vpward it ineuitably followeth that this supposed change of Religion did either happen in the interstitium and meane time betweene the two former Periods of times or els that there hapened no such chang in Religion in the Church of Rome at all Now concerning the first of these times how long in the Protestants iudgements M. Doctour did the Church of Rome retayne without staine or alteration in any point of moment or Article of beliefe for that only is to be enquired the Faith first deseminated by the Apostles D. WHITAKERS I will confesse in all ingenuity that diuers of our owne learned Brethren do teach that Rome retained her purity of Fayth without any such alteration by you intimated till after the deaths of Optatus Epiphanius and Augustine which is during the space of foure hundred and forty yeares after Christ CARD BELLARMINE You say most truely and I do like your playnesse herein since he is truely politike espetially in matters of Religion which require all candour in theire menaging who is not politicke For wheras our Catholicke writers haue much insisted that Tertullian prouoked the Heretickes of his daies to the Succession of the Bishops of Rome your owne D. Fulke giueth this reason touching such his prouocation in these words The argument then drawne from Succession was good because the Church of Rome retained by Succession vntill Tettullians dates that Faith which it did first receaue from the Apostles To whose iudgment in this particular reason your selfe M. Doctour in your booke writen against me subscribs thus saying from hence we do vnderstaÌ„d why TertulliaÌ„ did appeale to those Churches to wit because the Churches did then hould the Apostolicall Doctrine by a perpetuall succession But to descend further in time touching the graunted preseruation of the Faith of Rome wheras in like manner some Chatholicke Authors haue alledged the same argumeÌ„t drawne from the Succession of Bishops by the example of Irenaeus Cyprian Optatus Hierome Vincentius Lyrinensis and Augustine all which Fathers most rested in the Succession of the Bishops of Rome still continued till their daies your foresaid D. Fulke answereth in behalfe of the sayd Fathers in this sort That these Fathers especially named the Church of Rome it was because the Church of Rome at that time as it was founded by the Apostles so it continued in the Doctrine of the Apostles With whome accordeth D. lewell saying Aswell Augustine as also other godly Fathers rightly yealded reuerence to the Sea of Rome c. for the purity of Religion which was there preserued a loÌ„g time without spot To conclude Caluine himselfe euen in the same manner answereth the foresayd argument of Succession of Bishops in the Church of Romê insisted vpon by Irenaeus Tertullian Origen Augustine Optatus Epiphanius and others for thus Caluine speaketh Cùm extra controuersiam esset nihil à principio vsque ad aetâ—â—tem illam mutatum fuisse in doctrina c. Seing it was a Poynt out of Controuersy that nothing in doctrine froÌ„ the beginning to that very age was changed these holy Fathers did take that which they thought sufficient for the destroying of all new Errours to wit the doctrine constantly and with an vnanimous consent retayned euen from the Apostles dayes till their tymes Thus Caluine To these fromer I may alledge that Sentence out of D. Fulke saying The Popish Church c. departed from the Vniuersall Church of Christ long since Augustins departure out of this lyfe Thus he granting that till S. Augustins death the Church of Rome was the true Church so euident and clere we se it is that the Church of Rome neuer changed her Religion from the Apostles first Planting of it vntill the times of S. Augustin Epiphanius Optatus c. which was as is aboue sayd foure hundred and forty yeares after Christ Thus farre M. Doctor concerning the durance of the tymes euen by the Protestants frequent confessions that no change of fayth was made in the Church of Rome Tonching which poynt Irefere you for greater satisfaction to certaine quoted places of the aforesayed Fathers to wit of Hierome Ireâ—aeus Augustine Vincentius Lyrâ—neâ—sis Ambrose c. All which Fathers in their writings do constantly auerre that the Faith preached in their dayes in the Church of Rome was the true Fayth and consequently was neither then nor afore subiect to change or alteration Now all this being made thus euident it followeth according to our designed Method that we consider the number of those ages during the lenght of all which from this day vpwards the present Roman Fayth hath by the lyke Confession of the Learned Protestants bene generally taught Seing how long the Protestants bene generally taught Seing how long the Protestants do grant that the Church of Rome hath from this day contined in her present Faith so long it followeth by their owne implicit censures and most necessary inferences that the Church of Rome neuer altered her Fayth Therfore M. Doctour I would know of you what your learned Men do generally teach about the continuance and antiquity of our present Roman and Catholicke Religion D. WHITAKERS I will not deny but that our Doctours do ascrybe an antiquity to your Popish Fayth for a thousand yeares at least For first D. Humfry my worthy sy'mmachos cai symmy'stes shewing what Religion Augustine planted in England being sent by Gregory the Great then Pope of Rome who liued in the yeare 590 thus instanceth in the particular points of the then Roman Religion In Ecclesiam verò quid inuexerunt Gregorius et Augustinus Onus ceremoniarum c. what did Gregory and Angustine bringé into the Church They did bring a burden of Ceremonies They did bring in the Archiepiscopall Pall for the solemnization of the Masse They did bring in Purgatory c. the oblation of the Healthfull Oast and prayer for the dead c. Relicks Transubstantiation c. a new conscecratioÌ„ of Temples c. from all which what other thing is effected then the introducing of Indulgences Monachisme Papisme and the rest of the Chäos of Popish Superstition all this did Augustine the great Monke being instructed herein by Gregory the Monke bring to the English men Thus farre D. Humfry CARD BELLARM. Well then M. Doctour it clearely appeares by this that
liued before the fourth Age and consequently before the aboue mentioned 160. yeares were Professours of your Protestant or our Roman Faith D. WHITAKERS I make no doubt but all of them professed with a generall consent our Protestant Fayth knew not the present Doctrine and Faith of Rome CARD BELLARM. See how fowly you are mistaken M. Doctour And therefore seeing the discouery of errours is an establishment of the Truth for the fuller manifesting of your ouer sight herein I will insist for greater breuity only in six chiefe Articles of the Catholicke Faith for a tast of the rest which euen by your owne Brethrens Confessions were mantained by the Fathers liuing in the fourth age froÌ„ whence we may necessarily inferre that not any change touching those points was brought into the Church of Rome within the compasse of the said 160. years And first I will beginne with the doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Masse where as also in other Articles following I will discerpe here there out of the great abundance thereof some few acknowledgments of the Protestants Now here you cannot deny M. Doctour but that touching Cyprian who liued Anno 240. your Centurists thus affirme SacerdoteÌ„ Cyprianus in quit vice Christi furgi et Deo Patri Sacrificium offerre for this very point they condemne him of Superstition In like sort they thus reprehend Ambrose who liued anno 370. Ambrose did vse certaine speaches c. as to say Masse to offer vp Sacrifice Yea D. Fulke conspireth openly with the former Protestants thus speaking of these Fathers following Tertullian Cyprian Augustine Hierome of which some liued within the said 160. yeares others long afore them do witnesse that Sacrifice for ilâ—e dead is a Tradition of the Apostles To be short Sebastianus Francus no obscure Protestant among you thus writeth statim post Apostolo omnia inuersa surt c. Caena Domini in Sacrificium transformata est Touching the Primacy of the Bisâ—op of Rome your Centurists do reprehend Nazianzen Cyprian Origen and Tertullian for their teaching of Peters Primacy In like sort Pope Victor who liued in the yeare 160. after Christ did actually challenge and practise this kind of Supremacy as D. Fulke acknowledgeth Concerning praier for the dead D. Fulke thus writeth Praier for the dead preuailed within three hundred years after Christ And another of your owne Brâ—â—hren thus confesseth Praier for the dead was in the Church long before Augustins daies as appeareth in Cyprian Tertullian But D. Fulke and Kempnitius do confesse that Prayer for the dead is taught in the writings of Dionysius Areopagita who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles whose writing in which Praier for the dead is taught are acknowledged by D. Fulke supposing them not to be written by the said Dionysius as some Protestants are not ashamed to auerre to be writen about thirteen hundred yeares since Touching Inuocation of Saints D. Fulke confesseth that in Bâ—â—sill Naziaâ—zen and Chrysosâ—ome is â—nuocatioâ— of Saints The Centurists thus write of CypriaÌ„ CypriaÌ„ doth not obscurely signify that Martyrs dead Saints did may for the liuing Yea they further charge Origen Who liued in no 2â—0 with praying himselfe to holy Iob saying O beate Iob ora prouobis in seris They further charge him with inuocation of Angels They further thus concluding of that third age after Christ videas in Doctorum huius seculi scriptis non obscura vestigta inuocationis Sanctorum Touching Free-will The foresaid Centurists do reprehend Irenaeus who liued in the second age in that he admitteth as they say Free-well in spirituall actions And Osiander the Protestant thus saith of iustine who liued in the age of Irenaeus Iustine extolled too much the liberty of mans will in obseruing the Commandements of God To be short another of your brethren doth thus couple the ancient Fathers of those ages saying Cyprian Tertullian Origen Clemens Alexandrinus Iustine Irenaeus c. erred in the doctrine of Free-will Lastly touching the doctrine of Merit of workes Luther stileth Hierome Ambrose Augustine Iusticiarios Iustice-workers In like sort the Centurists thus charge Origen saying Origen made workes the Cause of our Iustification To conclude D. Humfrey thus confesseth of Irenaeus Clemens the one liuing in the first age the other in the second age after Christ It may not be denyed but that Irenaeus Clemens and others called Apostolicall haue in their writings the opinion of Merit of workes Aud thus farre M. Doctour of some chiefe points of the present Roman Religion taught by the Fathers of whoÌ„ some liued in the fourth age and so within the compasse of the afore mentioned 160. yeares though most of them liued in the first second third age of Christ from whence we necessarily euict that no change of the Faith of Rome in the said poynts was made within the compasse of the sayd 120. yeares which time was aboue set downe betweene the confessed period of the Churches Purity and the acknowledged generally 〈…〉 ceiued doctrine of the now Church of Rome And here but that I am willing to auoid all prolixity I do assure you I could auerre iustify the like touching all other Catholicke doctrines taught by the Fathers of the former ages and accordingly beleeued at this day by the Church of Rome Yet before I end this point I will adioyne to the former proofs this ensuing consideration touching the fore said â—60 yeares It is this if we consider either the plurallity of our Catholiche Articles or the incompatibility which diuers of them beare partly to the outward sense partly to mans naturall propension or the diuersity of Countries Nations in Christendome most remote one from another all which cur said Catholicke Religion is acknowledged wholy to possesse at the later end of the sixt Age or Century I say if we consider all these different Circumstances the time of the said â—60 yeares within which most Protestants do teach this supposed change did happen is infinitely too litle and wholy disproportionable as that within the coÌ„passe thereof so great 〈◊〉 change and alteration should be wrought especially in such an admirable manner that whereas in the beginning of the said 160. yeares it is auerred by the Protestants that not any one point of our Catholicke Religion was then taught yet at the end of the said 160. yeares it should so ouerflow all Christendome with such a violent streame as that no sparke of Protestancy supposing afore it were professed or any other Religion did remaine in any one Country or other but that all was wholy extinct and as I may say annihilated Such an imaginary change and alteration I say as this is more then stupendious and wonderfull and such as since the creation of the world neuer afore hapned But M. Doctour giue me leaue by the way to aske
of you the second time for all the Protestants do not precisely consent herein how longe do you thinke that the Church of Rome did continue in her Verginall state and Purity without any stayne in her Faith D. WHITAKERS I thinke that during the first six hundred yeares after Christ the Church was pure florishing and inuiolably taught and defended the Fayth deliuered by the Apostles During all which ages the Church of Christ in respect of truth in Faith and Religion was as I may say in the full assent of the wheele And although to speake by resemblance there are found euen many irregularities in the regular motions of the Heauens yet I am fully perswaded that for the space of the first six hundred yeares no annomalous exorbitancies of errours or superstition did accompany the heauenly preaching of the Ghosple in the Church of Christ CARD BELLARM. M. Doctour indeed part of what you here say are your owne words in your booke against D. Sanders and you deale more liberally herein then diuers of your Breehren by affording a hundred and fifty yeares more to the true Church then most of them will allow Now you granting the purity of Faith to continue in the Church of Rome for the space of the first six hundred yeares after Christ do withall implicitly and inferentially grant that no change of Faith was made in that Church within the compasse of the afore mentioned 160. yeares seeing the said 160. yeares are included within the first six hundred yeares as being part of them But to proceed further you are here M. Doctour to call to minde what your selfe at other times no doubt at vnawares haue writen I do finde to instance only in some two or three points that you affirme that Victor who liued anno 160. after Christ was the first that exercised iurisdictō vpon forraine Churches That not Cyprian only who liued anno 240. to vse your owne words but almost all the most holy Fathers of that time were in errour touching the Doctrine of good works as thinking so to pay the paine due to sinne to satisfy Gods iustice Finally that Leo who was Pope anno 440. to speake in your owne dialect was a great Architect of the Antichristian kingdome Are not all these your assertions M. Doctour D. WHITTAKERS I cannot but acknowledge them for mine since they are extant to be read in my owne bookes loath I am to be so vnnaturall as to disauow or abandon any issue begotten on my owne brayne CARD BELLARM. Marke well then M. Doctour my deduction If the Chucrh of Rome remayned in her purity of Fayth without any change for the first six hundred yeares for your owne confessiō aboue expressed is that the Church of Christ so long continued a chast and intemerate Spouse And if as your owne penne hath left it written the doctrine of the Popes Supremacy was taught by Victor the first The doctrine of Merit of Works was mainteyned by Cyprian generally by other Fathers of that age and to be short if Leo were a great Architect of the kingdome of Antichrist you meaning of our present Roman Religion all which said Fathers to wit Cyprian Victor Leo and the rest did liue diuers ages before the sixt age or Century to what time you extēd the purity of the Faith of the Church of Rome doth it not then ineuitably result out of your owne Premisses if al this be true as you affirme it is that the doctrin of the Popes Supremacy the doctrine of merit of workes and our Catholicke Doctrine generally taught by Antichrist as you tearme the Pope were no innouations but the same pure doctrines which the Apostles first plāted in the Church of Rome Se how your felfe through your owne inaduertēcy hath fortified the truth of that doctrine which your selfe did intende to ouerthrow And thus farre to show that their neuer was made any chāg of Fayth in the Church of Rome prooued from the distribution diuision of those two different times which by the learned Protestants acknowledgments do contayne the Periods of the Church of Rome her continuance in the true Fayth of the Publicke and generall Profession of our now present Romane Fayth D. WHITTAKERS My L. Cardinall Whereas you haue produced seuerall testimonies from our owne learned Protestāts who teach that in the second third fourth age after Christ such such an Article of the Papists Religion had it beginning It seemeth in my iudgment that these their authorities do more preiudice then aduantage your cause Since such testimonies if so you will stand to them do shew a beginning though most anciēt of those doctrines after the Apostles deaths and consequently a change of Faith in the Church of Rome For if you will admit the authorities of the Protestants granting the antiquities of the present Romish Religion in those former times you are also by force of reason to admit their like authorities in saying that at such tymes and not before those Articles were first taught for seing both these points are deliuered by the Protestants in one the same sentence or testimony why should the one part thereof be vrged for true and the other reiected as false MICHAEAS M. Doctour Here with my L. Cardinall and your owne good licence I am to make bould to put in a word or two This your reply M. Doctour by way of inference may seeme to lessen the antiqurty of our ancient Iewish Law and therfore I hold my selfe obliged to discouer the weakenes therof though not out of desire to entertaine any contestation with you Grant then that some miscreants or Heathen Writers as Enemies to the Law of Moyses affirme that the Religion of the Iewes had it beginning in the tyme of Esdras for example This their testimony may iustly be alleaged to prooue that our Iewish Law was as auncient at least as Esdras but it cannot be alleadged to prooue that our Law tooke it first beginning at that time only and not before in the dayes of Moyses Therefore in the Authorities of this Nature produced from our Aduersaries writinges we are to distinguish and seuer that which the Aduersaries granteth in the behalfe of vs from that which he affirmeth to his owne aduantage What he grāteth for vs against himselfe so farre we are to embrace his authority seing it may be presumed that ordinarliy no learned man would confesse any thing against himselfe his Religion but what the euidency of the truth therein enforceth him vnto and therefore one of the ancient Doctours of your Christian Church if I do remember his words in this respect said well I will strike the Aduersaryes with their owne weapons But what the Aduersary affirmeth in fauour of his owne cause and against vs their we are not to stand to his own authority since no man is to be a witnes in his owne behalfe and it well may be presumed that such his sentence
owne death Neither lastly if not any historiographer of the Iewish tymes did in their workes and writings giue the least touch therof But pardon me both of you for this my interrupting and I would intreat you to proceede further in this your learned discourse CARD BELLARM. I will satisfie your request but before I descend to any other argument I will annex to my former demonstration for I can tearme it no lesse drawne from the silence of Doctours in contradicting and Historiographers in relating any presumed innouations in the Church of Rome these ensuing Considerations 1 First we finde that the lesse iustifiable liues conuersatioÌ„ in manners of some few Popes were precisely regestred and recorded to all Posterity with intention perhaps to disgrace all Popes as if all Popes were to be represented in some one or other lesse vertuous Pope as all men are in Adam Now then this being most true can we probably thinke that the Historians of those ages being euer ready prepared to taxe the Personall vices of the Popes themselues who as you see were forced by this meanes to passe the Red sea of shame disgrace and obloquy all of them would be wholy silent in relating the greatest change in Religion that euer happened if any such chang had truly really bin effected 2 Secondly we all knowe that the Greeke Church hath bin for many ages emulous of the Church of Rome and therfore if the present Church of Rome had anciently made any Diuision or Scissure from the true Church of Christ the Grecians no doubt who then stood euer vpon the hight of Enâ—â—y the better presently to espy any arising aduantage against the church of Rome would haue bene most apt to recommend the memory of such a change in our church to all after ages in their Histories But no such records we finde in any of their writings Yea the Grecians are so far from that as that on the contrary side the present Church of Rome is able to specifie and note out of most ancient and approoued Authours the very times when the Grecians first introduced those particuler Opinions wherin at this day they dessint from our Roman and catholicke church I will insist for breuity in some few cheife examples First their deniall of Obedience to the Sea of Rome was begun by Iohn of Constantinople and was noted and writen against by Gregory the Great and Pelagius Their denial of the proceedings of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Sonne tooke it beginning and at it first rysing was gainsaid and contradicted about the yeare 764. Their deniall of prayer for the dead was begun by Arius and impugned by Epiphanius l and Augustine Their bringing in of leauened bread by the Grecians in the celeberation of the Eucharist was first begun about the yeare 1053. as appeareth out of the writings of Leo the nynth and the Centurists Now can it be imagined that those being few in number could so precisely be contradicted writen against and left regestâ—ed to all posterity and yet this supposed change of the church of Rome consisteth in bringing in of far more Articles in number and of as great consequence should neuer be noted nor impunged by any one Doctour or Father nor recorded nor obserued by any one Historiographer the said Doctours Fathers Historiographers liuing in the very same ages wherin this supposed alteration is sayd to haue hapned By the same ground might Pythâ—goras well maintayne as in his books he attempted to do that the earth being in speciall motion of 24 houres our selues because we are carryed together with this reuolution cannot obserue that any such motion of the earth is 3 Thirdy we may call to mind that wheras the Ceremonies in the celeberation of the Masse were successiuely and at seuerall tymes added and first brought in by seuerall Popes So we finde accordingly that the Aduersaries of the present Church of Rome as willing to discouer our innouations though in the smalest matters for Malice is glade to take hould of the least aduantage and but in points of indifferency haue most diligently and painfully recorded them in their seuerall bookes written of this very subiect with all due circumstances both of the Popes introducing them and the tymes when they were introduced Here now I vrge If the Enemyes of the present Church of Rome being thus diligent and sollicitous in noting the beginning of eich Ceremony of the Masse all such Ceremonies being meerely accidentall to the Masse and without which the Masse may as truly and effectually be celebrated as with them If they I say could haue discouered any innouation in the maine Doctrine it selfe of the Masse as in the Doctrine of the Reall Presence the Sacrifice of Christs body there offered vp our Adoration of the Sacrament the Priests enioyned chastity for such his celebration would they haue bin silent therin or rather would they not haue loaded their books with the relation of all such innouations they consisting not in smale ceremonies but in most sublime and high dogmaticall points of Christian Religion If otherwise then belike our Aduersaries would haue vs to thinke that herin they resemble the Sunne which reuealeth the Terrestriall Globe being but of a litte quantity but concealeth the Celestiall which is of a far more spatious greatnes But to proceed and to conclude the force of this argument drawne from the impugning and recording of innouations in doctrine if this precise course by our Aduersaryes acknowledgments hath euer bin kept during all precedent ages without intermission in all matters confessed and out of controuersy betweene vs and the Protestants shall we dreame that it was so wholy neglected and forgotteÌ„ touching the supposed innouation of our Catholicke Doctrines as that such our cheife doctrines though first really brought in in those former tymes were neither at there first beginning impugned by any Doctours or Fathers of those ages nor recorded or mentioned by any one Ecclesiasticall Historiographer among so many of the same or later tymes But now to vndertake according to your desire Micheas an other argument You Protestants M. Doctour do affirme that this our present Roman Religion is Antichristian for so commonly most of you in your charitable language do stile it and that the Pope is the true Antichrist deciphered by the Apostle for his first introducing and defending of the sayd Religion and vpon this ground you teach that Papistry first came in when Antichrist first came in D. WHITAKERS We do so teach indeed For seing our mayne assertioÌ„ is that your Religion is Antichristian we cannot euen by the nature of Relatiues seuer and deuide so indissoluble companions they are the one from the other I meane Papistrie from Antichrist he being the Man who first did disseminate it and now the heade who cheifly principally and with all wicked molitions and machinations whatsoeuer maintayns it CARD BELLARM. You are M. Doctour it
seemes full gorged against the Pope as presumed by you to be Antichrist But let that for the tyme passe Do all you Protestants M. Doctour agree together touching the tyme of Antichrists first comming and consequently touching the supposed change in Fayth wrought by Antichrist his comming D. VVHITAKERS No. For I hould with our reuerent Man Beza who teacheth that Leo who was Pope anno Domi. 440. did clearely breath forth the arrogancy of the Antichristian Sea And therfore my constant Tenet is that Leo was a greate Architect of the Antichristian kingdome But some few other Protestants hould seuerall wayes herof CARD BELLARM. Some few M. Doctour not so but very many of them maintaine different and contrary Opinions touching the tyme of Antichrist his first coÌ„ming And first MelaÌ„cthon Bucer free the Pope from being Antichrist and do teach that the Turke is as Bucer speaketh ipsissimus Antichristus with whom in iudgment herin conspireth M. Fox Iunius that remarkable Protestant teacheth that Hildebrand who was Pope anno 1074. was the first Antichrist with whom D. Downham seemeth to agree in these words Gregory the seauenth alias Hildeb and was the first of the Popes who was openly acknowledged to be Antichrist Bullinger affirmeth he came in anno 763. he therfore tearming that yeare the fa all yeare D. Fulke and D. Williâ— place his comming in Anno 607. And make Boniface the third to be the first Antichrist with whome in iudgment herein your selfe M. Doctour forgetting as it should seeme what elsewhere you haue taught touching Leo conspire in these wordes Gregory the Great was the last true and holy Bishop of that Church c. And therfore because our Aduersaries demand of vs the tyme when Antichrist first came in we designe and set downe to them the very time of his comming But M. Napper ascendeth higher affirming Antichrist to haue first comme in Anno Domini 313. He teathing that Siluester the Pope was the first Antichrist Yet the Reformed Churches of Transiluania giue a greater antiquity of Antichrists first coÌ„ming placing it in the yeare 200. But Sebastianus Francus no obscure Protestant out-strippeth all his former Brethren for he ascribes Antichrists comming to the times immediatly following the Apostles thus writing for certaine through the worke of Antichrist the externall Church together with the Faith and Sacraments vanished away presently after the Apostles departure See how this high swelling riuer of Heresie for I do hold this sentence that the Pope is Antichrist to be no lesse then Hereticall is fed with the smale streames of eich mans particuler and different opinions which opinions though mainly dissenting in themselues yet most of them proceede from one generall source of the Protestants malice and hatred against the Pope and Church of Rome and therefore their iudgments herein must be more imperfect and deceaueable for as the eye seeth not aâ—ight except the species and formes of the thing seene do fall vpon the eye ad angulos rectos as the Optists do speake So here mans vnderstanding cannot apprehend any thing truly as long as is wanteth it owne naturall rectitude straightnes which is euer free from all obliquity of preiudice and Passion MICHEAS The variety of doctrin touching the comming of Antichrist is most wounderfull and far greater by many degrees then the diuersity of opinions amonge vs Iewes who was husband to Esther or at what tyme Iudith did liue And indeede I euer promised to my selfe before this time to haue found a far greater concordance of iudgment in this point amonge the Protestants then now I do finde D. WHITTAKERS I am not to defend eich Mans different opinions herein and I grant if any of these be true all the rest are false But it is sufficient to prooue that antichrist is come and that by his comming this great change in Faith and Religion was first then wrought in the Church of Rome and as touching the difficulty of proouing the circumstances of his first comming it importeth little seing here we are to remember to speake by allusion that it is easy to prooue that we see but hard to prooue how we see CARD BELLARM. I do not looke M. Doctour that you should make good all the former contraric opinions for it is impossible to iustify but any one of them Neuerthelesse it is a weake kynd of proofe to say only in grosse that Antichrist is already come and with his comming this so great a presumed chang in Faith was first brought in where you haue no more reason to allow of the particuler tyme of his comming by your selfe designed then your former Brethren haue for the fortifying of eich ones seuerall iudgment therin Only the disparity which I finde betweene them and you is this That euery one of them do set downe one only particuler tyme of Antichrist his comming and content themselues therwith wheras you M. Doctour imitating herin the skilfull Pilot who constantly changeth his sayles with the vnconstant winds for your best aduantage as it most fittingly sorts to your purpose in hand sometimes will haue his comming to be in Pope Leo to wit in the yeare 440. at other tymes in Boniface the third which is in anno 607. So you making a great Parenthesis as I may say of a hundred and fifty yeares at least betweene your two different sentences of Antichrist his comming But to returne to the force of this my argument drawne from the Protestants different and contrary Opinions touching the first reigne of Antichrist Here then I say seeing ther are among the Protestants so many contrary and irrecoÌ„cileable sentences of Antichrist his first entrance at what tyme this supposed chang of Fayth in the Church of Rome is sayd to haue bin effected And seeing that not any one of these different iudgments haue more warrant and authority for its supporting then any other of theÌ„ hath Therfore by force of all reason we may conclude that all there sentences herin are false and that Antichrist is not yet come and thus out of falsehood we may extract truth so consequently we may deduce that no chang of Fayth hath bin yet wrought in the Church of Rome by the said Antichrist Therfore I will coÌ„clude this argument with the more retired dispassionate and warie iudgments of some other of your learned Protestants to wit of that eminent Protestant Zanchius of Franciscus Lambertus no ordinary Man among you and of some others who Peremptorily affirme against all their former Brethren that Antichrist is not yet come MICHEAS For my part I must needs confesse that I do beleiue that Antichrist is not yet come For besides diuers other reasons vrged by vs Iewes in proofe therof those words of Daniell concerniug Antichrist his continuance to wit tempus tempora dimidium temporis were euer by all learned Iewish Rabbins interpreted literally and plainly to
except the name Catholicks which was euen in the Primatiue Church the surname of all Christians according to that Christianus mihi nomen est Catholicus vero cagnomen Illud me nuncupat istud me osteÌ„dit though the contrary we can shew of you who haue the names giuen to you of Lutherans Caluenits Besits c. Therfore it clearely followeth that the Professours of the present Roman Church haue neuer changed their Fayth first planted by the Apostles D. WHITAKERS Now my L. Cardinall you are foiled with your owne argument For haue you not the name of Papists peculiarly appropriated to your selues to distinguish you from the true professours of the ghospel In like sort are not some of your religious Men called Bernardins others Franciscans Benedictins Augustins c. so taking their appellation from particuler Men and thus your owne argument rebutteth vpon your selfe with great disaduantage Therfore my Lord be not so confident aforehand in the force of your alleaged reasoÌ„ but remember that Thraâ—y's prò'erysóù ' ec pollóù cacòs who is euer bould before the worke is attempted is commoÌ„ly indiscreete CARD BELLARM. M. Doctour You so seriously here trifle as that I euen blush in your behalfe to obserue how you wroÌ„g yourfollowers and Proselits with such weake transparency of reasons For you are here to vnderstand that the Surnames of Peculiar Hereticks as the Arians Eutichians Maniches and of all others were imposed vpon the Professours of these Heresies euen at the first beginning and rising of the sayd Heresies and were inuented out of necessity to distinguish their Heresies from all other Doctrines but now the word Papist M. Doctour was coyned but lately by Luther himselfe against vs this not out of necessity but of reproach our Fayth and Doctrine being acknowledged aboue by your leaned Brethren to haue bin in the world many hundred yeares before Luthers dayes Agayne the Word Papist is not restrained to any one Pope or any peculiar Doctrine taught by the present Church of Rome but it is indifferently extended to all Popes and all doctrines taught by the sayd Popes so fowly M. Doctour are you mistaken in alleadging the name Papist against vs and so much do you and other Protestants wrong vs euen for that very name we vndergoing herein by your Brethrens calumnies the like misfortune which Collatinus Tarquinius suffered who was depriued of his honours and subiect to disgrace and reproach by the Romans only for the hatefull name of Tarquinius Touching those names of Franciscans Bernardins Benedictans c. It is so cleare that these names are not imposed for change of Fayth but only for institution of seueral degrees of a vertuous and religious life as that I will answere you in your former Brother D. Feild his words who thus solueth this your obiection We must obserue that they who professe the Fayth of Christ haue bin sometymes in these later ages of the Church called after the special names of such Men as were the Authours beginners and deuisers of such courses of Monastical Profession as they made choyse to follow as Benedictans such like Thus D. Feild MICHEAS I thinke M. Doctour vnder yonr fauour that these your instances of names taken from the first institutours of seueral religious Orders in the Church of Christ do not imply any change of Fayth made by them and therefore the force of my L. Cardinal his argument borrowed from new imposed appellations is not weakned but rather fartified by this your reply My Reason is this in our Iewish Law we read that ther were some called Rechabits and others Nazarites both professing a more strict course of life then the vulgar and common people did In like sort Iosephus and Philo report much of the austerity of the Essenes among vs Iewes who in regard of such their peculiar Profession were called Essenes and to whom God vouchsafed many spiritual fauours and consolations Happy men since he is most fit to walke vpon the hight of celestial contemplation who liueth in the vale of a voluntary humility retyrednes and mortification In whom the fyre of the spirit doth euer extinguish the fire of the flesh and sensuality thus the greater heare putting forth the lesse heate Now shal any man thinke that these men instituted a Fayth and Religion different from that of Moyses It is both absurd to entertayne such a thought and withall it is a wrong and dishonour to the Law of Moyses And in my iudgment both these instances of the Old Testament produced by me and those other of the Franciscans c. obiected by you M. Doctour in a true and eauen libration of theÌ„ do prooue that which my L. Cardinal first endeauoured to prooue from the imposition of new Names For they manifest the seueral changes and alterations which were made both in the old Testament and the new touching a more austere profession of a vertuous life which was the subiect of those changes as these other new imposed names of Arians Nestorians Maniches and the rest aboue specified do necessarily euict a change first made in Doctrine by Arius Nestorius Manicheus c. But my L. Cardinall if you wil enlarge your selfe no further vpon this poynt I humbly intreate you to proceed to some other argument CARD BELLARM. Learned Micheas I wil proceed to that which at this instant shal be my last though for weight and force it might wel take the first place And it shal be taken M. Doctour from the first plantatioÌ„ of Christianity in your owne Country which though immediatly it concerneth but one Nation yet potentially it prooueth that ther was no change of Fayth at all made in the Church of Christ in any former tymes by the Professours of the present Roman Religion But here M. Doctour I am to demand your iudgment touching the times in which and the Person by whom the Britons of Wales were first conuerted to the Christian Fayth D. WHITAKERS All we Protestants agree that the Britons of Wales whre conuerted in the Apostles tyme by Ioseph of Aramathia and this we prooue not only form the authority of Sainct Bede who did write the history therof in the yeare 724. but also from the authority of our Principal Historiographers for thus M. Cambden our learned Countryman writeth Certum est Brit 〈…〉 in ipsa Ecclesiae infantia Christianâ—m Religionem imbibisse It is Certaine that the Britons receaued the Christian Religion euen in the infancy of the Church Who thus further discourseth of this Poynt In hac floruit Monasterium GlastenburieÌ„sis c. Here florished the Monastery of GlasteÌ„bury which taketh it ancieÌ„t beginning from Ioseph of Aramathia c. for this is witnessed by the most ancient Monuments of this Monastery c. nether is there any reason Why we should doubt therof Thus far M. Cambden with whom conspire all other Chroniclers as Harrison in his description of Britanny and others Yea of vs
Ministers of the ghospel D. Fulke D. Iewell and M. Henoch Clapham do ioyntly teach the same neither did I euer read any one authentical writer to deny it CARD BELLARM. How long M. Doctour do your writers confesse that the Britons did preserue their Fayth receaued in the Apostles tymes free from all change or mixture of innouatioÌ„s D. VVHITAKERS We do confesse that they preserued it pure and not stayned with any Errours til Augustine his comming into England who was sent by Pope Gregory to plant his religioÌ„ amoÌ„g vs English for first thus I finde D. Iewell to auer The Britons being conuerted by Ioseph of Aramathia held that Fayth at Augustins comming as also D. Fulke saying The Catholick Britans with whom Christian Religion had continued in succession from the Apostles tymes would not receaue Augustine To these we may adioyne the like words of M. Fox The Britons after the receauing of the Fayth neuer forsooke it for any manner of false preaching nor for tormeÌ„ts and finally that acknowledgment of D. Humfrey Habuerunt Britanni templa sibi non Romanis c. The Britons had temples and Churches peculiar to themselues not common with the Romans they not subiecting theÌ„selues to the yoake of the Romans CARD BLLARM Well M. Doctour you deale with integrity and playnes hitherto openly discouering what your reading and iudgement are able to deliâ—er herein And your Prayse in so doing is the greater since there are some men so cautelous in their proceedings and speaches and of such an impenetrable closenes of disposition as that we can neuer knowe their minde by their words the one for the most part standing neutrall to the other or rather the Aspect of a Diametricall Opposition But M. Doctour let me enquire further of you You know that there was an interuiew of meeting betweene this Augustine and the Bishops of Britanny or Walles for the conferring of their Religions together at a place called in S. Bede his time Augustineizat which point is further recorded by your Holinshead M. Fox and diuers others Now here I would intreate you sincerely to set downe the greatest differences of Fayth and Religon which at that meeting were found to be betweene the Briton Bishops and the foresayd Augustine D. WHITAKERS I will and my tongue shall truly subscribe to all that which of this point I haue heretofore read And first S. Bede will fully determine this point who relating how Augustine answered the Briton Bishops setteth his answere downe in thâ—se words Si in tribus his obtemperare mihi vultis vt Pascha suo tempore celebretis vt Ministerium Baptizandi quo Deo renascimur iuxta morem Romanae Apostolicae Ecclesiae compleatis vt Genti Anglorum vnà nobiscum praedicetis verbum Domini cetera quae agitis quamuis moribus nostris contraria eaquanimiter cuncta toller abimus that is If you Briton celebratingâ—aster â—aster day in it due tyme in conferring of Baptisme by the which we are reborne to God according to the Rites of the Roman and Apostolicall Church and in helping vs to preach to the English all other matters which you do though contrary to our manners we wil tollerate and suffer Thus far S. Bede But to what end my Lord Cardinall do you make so many demaunds touching this matter of the Britons Since I cannot see your proiect herein they neither preiudicing vs Protestants nor aduantaginge you Papists CARD BELLARM. M. Doctour you shal quickly discouer the drift of these my seuerall demaunds which resemble a Torrent stopped for a time that it may in the end ouerflow with greater violence Now to your former acknowledgmeÌ„ts we may adde touching only the three former differences the like Confessions of Holinshead M. Goodwin and the ProtestaÌ„t Authour of the History of great Briton whose words are these The Briton Bishops conformed themselues to the Doctrine Ceremonies of the Church of Rome without difference in any thing specially remembred saue only in the celebration of the feast of Easter c. Now M. Doctour in this last place I would haue you cal to minde what is aboue related touching the Fayth planted by Augustine of D. Humfrey the Centurists and Osiander D. Humfrey his words herin though the iteration of them may perhaps seeme vnpleasing I wil once more repeate for greater weight of our ensuing argument who speaking of Augustins Religion planted in England thus writeth In Ecclesiam verè quid inuexerunt Gregorius Augustinus onus Caeremoniarum c. intulerunt Pallium Episcopale ad sola Missarum solemnia Purgatorium c Oblationem salutaris hostiae Preces pro demortuis c. reliquias c. Transubstantiationem c. nouas templorum consecrationes c. Ex quibus omnibus quid aliud quaesitum est quam vt Indulgentiae Monachaâ—us Paptus reliquuÌ„que Pontificiae superstitionis Chaös extruatur Haec autem Augustinus Magnus Monachus a Gregorio Monacho edoctus importauit Anglis Thus D. Humfrey Are not these his owne words And are not the Centurists and Osiander aboue cited most cleare that Augustine at his comming into England preached the present Roman Religion in all chiefe points to you English D. WHITAKERS It cannot be denyed but that all the foresayd Protestants as also all Histories discoursing of this poynt do coÌ„fidently auerre the same Which said Gregory as he brought in some true wholsome poynts of Christian Fayth so did he mingle them with diuers poisonous superstitions worthily to be avoyded by all good Christians Phármaca pollà mén 〈…〉 esthlà memieména pollà de lyerà for it is most cleare that Augustine in this his plantation of Religion in England did greatly labour ' ar ' ' rostia quadam dianoias with an infirmity or sicknes of iudgment CARD BELLARM. Wel M. Doctour touching the venom you spit out against Augustines Religion I holde it but as fome froth of a distempered stomack and therfore I passe it ouer but to returne to my argument Here now I wil be seruiceable vnto you and by the mixture of all these former Ingredients I will present you with a wholsome Electuary compounded of them all for indeede I holde the demonstration issuing out of the premisses so vnauoydable as that it precludeth and forestalleth the aduersary of all shew of Reply First then it is graunted that the Britons were coÌ„uerted to the Fayth of Christ by Ioseph of Aramathia who as he had the honour to interre our Sauiour lay his sacred Body in a new monument cut out of a rock as the Euangelist speaketh so enioyed he the happines to bury al former infidelity in the Britons and to cloath or infolde their afore stony and rocky harts within the cleane Syndon of a pure Fayth in our Sauiour But to proceed Secondly it is confessed that the Britons retayned this their first Fayth spotles and without change till
Augustins comming into England Thirdly it is prooued that at the tyme of the conference betweene Augustine and the Briton Byshops the greatest difference in matters of Fayth and Religion wherupon they stoode were but two poynts cheifly consisting in Ceremony to wit the keeping of Easter day in it vsuall tyme and the forme of Baptizing according to the rites of Rome Fourthly and lastly it is graunted that Augustine here planted and preached to the English all Articles and points of the present Romane Religion or Papistry as you Protestants do vsually style it Now M. Doctour what other resultancy can here be made out of all these Premisses but this To wit that the Church of Rome in Augustins time teaching Papistry was wholy agreeable the two points or Ceremonies of keeping Easter day and of baptising with the Rites of Rome only excepted with the Fayth and Religion which was planted among the Britons by Ioseph of Aramathia in the Apostles daies and consequently that the Church of Rome teaching Papistry did neuer suffer any change in her Faith and Religion since the Apostles departed This is the Argument wherin I graunt I partly insult it is inauoidable it is a demonstration And pryse it Micheas as a strong Aries beating downe bearing before it whatsoeuer may seeme to withstand the Truth in this pointe controuerted MICHEAS In deed my Lord it seemes to me very forcible and you did well to reserue it to the last place that so like sweet-meats it might pleasingly close vp the tast of our iudgments Neuerthelesse the consideration of it doth not diminish with me the force of your other former arguments for though Better be better yet followeth it not but that Good is good D. WHITAKERS My Lord This your argument is tyed togeather with many links and breake but one of them all the rest are loosed And indeed it is but an argument drawne from Authority Negatiuely and by Omission only which you know is little valued in the schooles For the hinge as I may say or weight of it only consisteth in this That at the meeting of Augustine and the Briton Bishops dissented from Augustine But of other greater points we read no mention made among them and therfore for any thing we know the Britons might aswell disagree from Augustine in all other Articles passed ouer in silence as agree with them CARD BELLARM. How improbable how absurd how impossible is this you say And take heede M. Doctour that this your answere be not controuled by your owne secret conscience and beware of much practising the like hereafter since the Character of any bad course impressed by a long habit at length becoms indelible But to the point Consider all the Circumstances of the busines at that tyme handled and then deliuer an impartiall and euen censure The meeting was occasioned only for comparing their Faiths together Augustine imitating therin S. Paul vt conferat cum illis Euangelium quod praedicat in Gentibus The Britons euen by the acknowledgment of M. Fox did beare themselues at the first against Augustine with great pertinacy stubbernes and therfore the lesse probable it is that they would yeeld to him in any point of moment more then was agreeable to their owne Religion The differences betweene them after much disquisition and search are recorded to be only about the two former points of Ceremonies and seeming indifferency The Recorder of this great Passage was principally S. Bede who ex professo did write most elaborately and punctually the Ecclesiasticall History of England in those times and therein was obliged by his designed method not to register the smallest occurrents and wholy to omit the greatest Now then can we dreame that the Doctrines touching the Reall Presence the Sacrifice of the Masse Praying to Saints Purgatory Free-will Iustification by works Images Monachisme the Primacy of Peter and some others all being Articles of greatest importance and particulerly taught by S. Augustine were either not mentioned and not once spoken of in that serious discourse betweene Augustine and the Briton Bishops or they being then painfully discussed and ventilated the Britons being so refractory and stiffe with Augustine in the smalest points would quietly and without resistance embrace all these high doctrines as Innouations and repugnant to their Fayth first planted by Ioseph of Aramathia Or if the Briâ—on Bishops veâ—lded not their assent to these supreame poynts of Fayth of Rome would not such their reluctation and dislike haue bin recorded by S. Bede and other writers of those tymes who would not omit to relate the Britons stifnes and coldnes in the least matters of this History It is great weakenes but to suppose such impossibilities It is madnes and lunacy to beleeue them Therfore my absolute and last resolution here is that the Fayth of Augustine was then one and the same in all Articles with the Fayth of the Britons first preached to them in the Apostles dayes the Ceremonies of Baptising and of keeping Easter day cheifly excepted which lesser errours S. Augustine obseruing the Britons stiffnes thought perhaps would sooner be recalled by a patient sufferance of them for a tyme then by any violent meanes vsed at the first to the contrary like to some diseases which are best cured by continuing the diseases Now for the fuller close of this poynt to wit touching the agreement of the Doctrine taught by S. Augustine with the then Doctrine and Fayth of the Briton Bishops I will adde the acknowledgement of the Briton Bishops themselues of whom S. Bede thus relateth Britones quidem confitentur intellexisse se veram esse viam iustitiae quam praedicaret Augustinus so vnanimous we see were the Britons Augustine in their Fayth and Religion and therfore it was not strange that at the last as D. Fulke affirmeth Augustine did obtayne the ayd of the British Bishops to the conuersion of the Saxons And thus far of this argument the which shall serue as the Catastrophe or end of this my Scene wherin I haue vndertaken though more then by rigour of method I was tyed vnto to prooue by positiue arguments and reasons that the Church of Rome hath neuer suffered any change in her Fayth and religion since the Apostles dayes my cheife allectiue Micheâ—s inducing me therto being only your satisfaction in this your imposed Subiect or Question MICHEAS My L. Cardinall I render you humble thankes and I must say that these your former arguments produced seeme to me very moouing and except M. Doctour be able to repell them with other more forcible arguments they will I coÌ„fesse impell my Iudgment to giue it free and full consent to the beleeuing of that point for the proofe wherof they are by your Lordship alleadged CARD BELLARM. M. Doctour Seeing there is no truth so illustrious and radiant but that in an vndiscerning eye it may seeme to be clowded for the time with the interposition of some weake Obiections
you Christians And consequently the coÌ„ming of the Messias should be a sufficient warrant for your breach of the said Commandements then which to grant nothing can be excogitated more absurd or more derogating from the honour of Christ But good M. Doctour if you haue any more that can be produced for proofe of change of Faith made by the Church of Rome I would intreate you to perseuer in your discourse D. WHITAKERS Though I should grant some insufficiency and defect in my former instances and that we could not insist at all in any particulars of that nature neuerthelesse we are not endangered therby For we are not bound to answere in what age superstition crept into the Church And to grant more fully herein Of the tymes of this change it is not easi to answere neither is it necessary that the tymes of all such changes be set downe Breifly I auerre It is not needfull in vs to search out in histories the beginning of this change And with me in iudgment herein agree many learned Protestants As for exaÌ„ple to omit others Bucanus thus writeth Non est nostrum designare quo temporis momento caeperit Ecclesia deficere As also M. Powell saying We cannot tell neither by who or at what tyme the Enemy did sow it c. neither indeed do we know who was the first authour of euery one of your blasphemous opinions CARD BELLARM. O Iesus What strange and conscious tergiuersatioÌ„s are these And how mortally do they wouÌ„d your cause ReligioÌ„ wholy discouering your dispaire and diffidence therein For do not these Confessions ouerthrow your former instances If your supposed Examples be true then did you know the times of such a chaunge if you doe not knowe the times of the change as here you confesse you do not why then would you alleadge the foresaid Examples How can you extricate your selfe M. Doctour out of this maze or how can you decline this forked Delemma Furthermore if it cannot be knowne when any change of Fayth was made as here you and your Brethren confesse it cannot why should we beleiue there was made any chaÌ„ge at all He is weake who enthralleth his iudgment to the beleife of any such thing if so he wanteth the necessary and coÌ„ducing CircuÌ„staÌ„ces for the fortifying of such his beleife But belike you will finally say with Ioannes Rhegius a Protestant who not being able to exemplify any change in the Church of Rome arriued to that height of impudency as thus to write Sed denique licet verum esset Romanam Ecclesiam in sua Religione nihil mutasse an propterea mox sequetur eam esse veram Ecclesiam Non opinor Thus this Protestant D. WHITAKERS Not so my Lord Cardinall for I grant a change and the chang of Fayth made in the Church of Rome may well resemble the change in colour which heires do make in being become gray nothing hauing it maturity vpon the sodaine In like sort it may aptly resemble the changes in Edifices houses occasioned by their ruines and decaies We see by experience these changes are true and reall and yet cannot any man set downe punctually the tyme when either the heires are becom gray or the buildings are made ruinous The like may be sayd touching the change of Fayth in the RomaÌ„ Church certaine it is that such a change is already made but when by whom and in what manner it is most vncertaine MICHEAS What M. Doctour do your greatest proofs for the change of ReligioÌ„ finally end in these similitudes If so then I may say I do carry about me my best instructours herein must these gray haires of this my hoary heade and beard my selfe being 60. yeares of age and more and the decayes of this my old body for the same reason there is here of a ruinous body which is of a ruinous house teach me what Religion among you Christians I am to embrace Haue my wearied members taken so great a iourney of so many hundred miles to this place only to take aduise of my beard and my owne feeble limms which sitting at the sire side at home I coulde with farre more ease and with as much certainty haue performed ô the misery of man who lyeth open in matters of greatest waight and importance to the deceit of such rotten foundations they being as weake for proofe of what they are vrged as the things froÌ„ which these resemblaÌ„ces are taken are weake in their owne nature CARD BELLARM. M. Doctour I do assure you in all sincerity I do much condole the state of ignorant Lay ProtestaÌ„ts to see how their eyes are sealed vp by the learneder sort of you who in your Pulpits and writings are often accustomed to inueighe in great acerbity of stile and tragicall exclamations against the Church of Rome for hauing altered as you beare your followers in hand her Primitiue Faith But you being pressed to prooue this imaginary change are forced for the warranting thereof to take your last and best proofs from some few gray hayres and slâ—fters in an old rotten wall But because these similitudes and resemblances are most vrged not only by your selfe but also by many other Protestants of Note and haue much swayd with vulgar iudgments not in respect of any force in them but in regard of the eminency of their first Inuentors so the water heateth not because it is water but by reasoÌ„ of it borrowed heate elswhere Therefore I will examine them narrowly and will shew the great disparity betweene them and the change which is at any time made in Religion 1 First then the first smale decay in any building and the first shew of whitenes in haires is imperceptible and not to be discerned wheras euery change in faith though but in one point or article is most markeable and subiect to obseruation 2 Secondly the whitenes of the haires of the head and the ruins of a house do not happen but by degrees and therefore at the first cannot be obserued whereas euery Opinion in doctrine is at the first either true or false and therefore is for such at the first to be appreheÌ„ded by the vnderstanding 3 Thirdly not any haue the charge or care imposed vpon them to obserue the changes in these petty matters but in the Church of Christ there are euer appointed Pastours Doctors whose office is to marke the first beginning of any innouation in doctrine and accordingly to labour to suppresse the same 4 Fourthly these similitudes and deceitfull resemblances being truly vrged do recoyle backe with disaduantage to the Protestants For although we cannot shew when the first haire began to be white or the first slifter in a house begunne to be a slifter yet any notable degrees of the said whitenes in the haires or of the slifters in a house are easily discerned and therefore the Protestants are obliged euen from the nature of these their owne similitudes to tell
testimonies of the Primitiue Fathers from Ecclestasticall Histories and from your owne more moderate and learned Brethrens acknowledgments are drawne out against you like so many sorts of Artilery to batter downe the walls of Heresie and you not daring and indeed not able to indure the assaults of any of these then are you at the last forced to flee to the bare letter of the scripture interpreted contrary to all the former authorities by your owne most partiall priuate spirit And the better to lay some pleasing and faire colours vpon the rugged graine of this your assumed priuile dge you are not afraid peculiarly to apply to your selues as though you were the sole partage of God these former words of the Flock the Vnction and Abba Pater Neither do you rest here but many of your Coate as may be obserued both out of their sermons and writings much solace and delight theÌ„selues in these following phrases of the scripture euer hauing them in their mouths and vsing them with the helpe of the casting vp the white of the eye as spels to enchant the simple Spiritus 〈◊〉 vbi vult spirat Christ crucified sauing faith the spirituall Maniudgeth allthings and is iudged of none Animalis homo non percipit ea quae sunt spiritus Dei the sanctisication of the spirit the reuealing sayth finally to omit many such others that which is borne of the spirit is of the spirit Thus as if your selues were wholy spiritualized and enioyed certaine Rapts VisioÌ„s or Enthusiasnes you vendicate to your selues most ambitiously the former passages of Gods sacred Writ only to blanch hereby the deformity of your Cause and to bleere the vndiscerning eyes of your ignorant and credulous followers Such men breath herein an insufferable elation and height of mind I will not say pride imposture and Hipocrisy D. WHITAKERS My Lord these are but your iniust aspertions cast vpon the Innocency of the Professours of the Ghosple whose words not for forme-sake as you wrongfully suggest but euen out of pure conscience are euer concordant to the illuminations of the spirit descending from the Lord. But to turne my speaches more particularly to you Micheas It seemes by many ouerturnes by you already giuen that you intende to turne Papist And indeed I much wonder why your iudgement should rather propend to the Romish faith then to the cleerelight of the Ghosple Since in treading your intended course besides all other arguments here omitted It seems you little prise the authority of so many worthy Protestant doctors both in my owne nation of England and to omit other places throughout the most spatious Country of Germany Men of extraordinary eminency for learning and whose Vâ—tuersities are celebrious throughout all Christendome and in theire place you are content to enthrall your iudgment to the absurd and sencelesse Positions of the obscure and illiterated Italians and Spanyards who are not by nature made so maniable as I may say as to menage the high Misteries of Christian Religion and whose blinde credulity suffereth their minds to enterta ine any superstition or errour whatsoeuer And you must here remember Micheas that it is much learning which conduceth a scholler to the Port of a true fayth whereas a superficiall measure rather endangereth him then otherwise whose state herein is like to ship-wracke or losse by Sea which is often caused through want of Sea or water but seldome through abundance thereof thus the store of that which occasioneth the hurt or domage being had would preuent the hurt or domage it selfe The like I say is a schollers case herein Therefore Micheas be wary now at the first with whether side you consociate your selfe least otherwise your resolutioÌ„ be atteted hereafter with a fruitlesse Repentance And though the knowledge of thinges to come be ouercast with the darkenes or Vncertainty yet God grant I prooue not a true Sybill deuining of your future misfortune MICHEAS M. Doctour I take your admonition charitably yet I mustneeds say you deale strangely herein for whereas Man only is capable of Religion you neuerthelesse would haue me cease to be a man in the choyce of my Religion Since you implicitly will me to reiect and abandon so farre forth as concerns my election of fayth all prudence iudgment and Reason it selfe and to rest vpon the bare letter of the Scripture interpreted contrary to all antiquity by my owne priuate and perhaps erroneous spirit And is not this I pray you to extinguish all light of Reason by which we differ from other Creatures and agree with immateriall Spirits Since not to vse reason at all is the property of a beast to vse it well of a celestiall Angell Now touching the Parallell which you make betweene the Protestant and Catholicke Countries I must confesse plainely I do not conspire with you in iudgment therein your English Protestant Doctours I purposely passe ouer in silence and do repute them learned Touching the Germans It is true that they haue beene and still are diuers graue schollers of Germany some Protestants and other Catholicks and infinitly farre more Catholicks then Protestants by how much longer time Germany hath bin Catholicke then Protestant against whose honour and due reputation farre be it from me to speake Neuerthelesse if we do with a steddy hand ballance that Nation and the custome of it with Italy and Spayne to speake nothing of France which being almost wholy Catholicke some few places excepted hath and doth daily bring forth men of great worth for learning We shall then easily discouer the disproportion and inequality And to giue a little touch of the nature of them all who knoweth not that in diuers parts of Germany the Inhabitants are but certaine liuelesse and great Colosses or Statuaes of flesh and bones who make their bodies but conduits or strayners for beare and wine to passe through belching out their discourses of Religion in ful carouses a maine cloude which darkneth the light of the vnderstanding Againe who can be persuaded that Fleame and Haire the predominant complexion of that country and a loathsome bespitled stoue caÌ„ contest in matters of eruditioÌ„ with the ingenuous melaÌ„choly of the Italians and Spaniards and their most famous schools and Academies By the help of which actiue humour in them for I speake not of that grosse and dull Melancholly wherby a Man thinketh and walketh away his dayes the pure and vnfettred Soule disorganized as it were and vnbodyed for the tyme doth by an inward reflex glasle it selfe in it owne essence and so transcending it accustomed limits through an internall working of it owne Powers doth penetrate the most difficult and abstruse misteries in learning and religion fanning away points which in their owne properties are to be seuered and casting or fagoting together things of one Nature But to returne backe to Germany which I will euer acknowledg hath brought forth many most famous and worthy Men for Learning Vertue
and Piety your former assertion in ascribing the Protest an t faith to all that Country cannot be iustifyed For though I grant it is on most sides obsest as I may say with Protestancy yet it is certaine that diuers principall parts thereof are not Protestant but Catholicke in Religion As halfe of Switzerland a part of the Grisons Voltolyne the whole Country of Bauaria the Territories of all the Bishops Electours the kingdome of Bohemia besides many Imperiall Citties and states Againe as other parts thereof do ioyntly and particulerly disclaime from the Roman Religion so though they all do challenge to themselues the name of Protestants yet do they manteine many irreconcileable differences of Religion enen of the greatest importance like seuerall wayes and Tracts meeting in one common place and then instantly deuided one from another This appeareth as I am enformed most cleare and euident from the authority of Hospinian a learned German Protestant who hath diligently set downe the names of many scores of Bookes written in great acerbity of style by one Gerâ—aÌ„ Protestant against another German Protestant according nereto it is that we finde so many kindes of Sectaries and Hereticks in Germany as the Caluinists the Lutherans the Anabaptists the Antitrinitarians and some others though they all be linked and tyed together in the common and maine knot of Protestancy And thus farre M. Doctour of this point where you see I haue smale reason to embrace the Protestant Religion before the Catholicke because that is professed throughout Germany as you pretend this cheifly restrained to Italy Spayne and France But let vs returne backe to the generall subject of this your disoutation with my Lord Cardinall I would intreat you M. Doctour to alleadge some stronger arguments for the change off yeh in the Church of Rome then hitherto you haue giuen which if you do not then what by reason of the weakenes of your said arguments at least in my apprehension and what in respect that I do not see the proofes Produced by my Lord Cardinal to be sufficiently by you refuted I must tell you aforehand I will embrace the Catholicke Roman Religion disauow all Protestancy CARD BLLARM M. Doctour if you can support this your position of Romes change with other more forcing reasons I would intreate you now to insist further in them You see I am prepared to giue my best answere to what you can object If you do not I must presume all your forces are already spent they indeed being but weake reseÌ„bling that of S. Iude Cloudes without water carryed about with windes MICHEAS I pray you M. Doctour forbeare not to grant to this my desire since otherwise I must rest assured that no more can be sayd on your part touching this subject CARD BELLARM. Yeild M. Doctour to this Learned Iewes importunity you know he hath vndertaken a journey of many hundred miles to this Citty onely to be resolued in this one Point therefore both in charity and for the preseruing of your owne honour and reputation you stand obliged to giue all satisfaction vnto him D. WHITAKERS Tush you are both ouer vpbrayding with me and seeing I intend no further dispute with men of so irreâ—ragable dispositions I first for a close say to you Micheas that where you intend to become a Papist your change is this that you leaue that which was ouce good though now bad to embrace that which is euer bad I meane you leaue Iudaisme to entertaine Papisme and thus you become a new Proselyte or rather Neophyte in the schoole of Superstition Idolatry Now as for you Cardinall whose name is so celebrious and so much aduanced in the eares and mouthes a fall men know you that touching the subiect of this our discourse I doubt not but that my arguments reasons and Instances aboue alleadged do in the iudgment of such as the Lord hath illuminated with the truth of the Ghosple sufficiently prooue the great changes made of Fayth and Religion in the Church of Rome since it first receaued it Faith in the Apostles daies And if the truth hereof be hid from any I may then say with the Apostle It is hid from them that perish and are lost Therefore my irreuocable conclusion is this that the Church of Rome was once the true Church and in fayth pure and incontaminate as before I acknowledged but at this present it is The Whore of Babilon a branch cut from the true Vine adenne of theeues the large way leading to destruction the kingdome of Hell the Body of Antichrist a heape or masse of errours a great Mother of whoring the Church of the wicked out of the which it behoucth euery christian to depart and which Christ in the end will miserably destroy inflict due punishments for all it impieties and with this as vnwilling to haue further entercourse or dispute with any that subiect themselues to this prophane Church I end and bid you both farewell CARD BELLARM. M. Doctour I much greiue to see you thus transported with passion and to inueigh with such acerbity of words against Christs intemerate spouse but I the more easily pardon you since it is hard vpon the sodame to cast of a habit which hath beene often engrained in diuers tinctures of many operations so spleenfull a â—â—slike you haue against the Church of Rome and indeede it seemes you labour with the disease of those whose spitle being enuenomed make them to thinke that euery thing they take in their mouths doth taste of venome But since it is your minde to breake off so sodainely with vs I recommend you to the tuition of him who in an instant is able to turne the most stony hart into Cor docile and Cor emolitum and my prayers shal be that before the time of your death you may haue the grace to implant your selfe as a branch of that Church the profession of whose faith may be auaileable to the sauing of your soule MICHEAS I am beholden vnto you M. Doctour for your Paines and labour taken in this disputation howbeit I must confesse I did expect to haue heard more said for the proofe of the Church of Rome her change in Religion then as yet is deliuered where I see that your faire promised mountaines in the beginning do but turne to snow and after resolue into water and that by your finall appealing to the written word alone you endeauour to set the best face vpon your ouerthrow in this your dispute bearing your selfe herein like to souldiers who are forced to yeild vp their hould and yet couet to depart with such ceremonies as are not competent to such as yeild Neuerthelesse I commend you to the protection of the God of Israell and will pray that you may after this life enioy the blessings which are already granted to Abraham Isaâ—ck Iacob and their Seede D. VVHITAKERS Well well Once more I bid you both farewell MICHEAS My
Lord the doctour you see is gone and indeed I much dislike his bitter eiaculation of reprochfull words against the Church of Rome little sorting to the presumed grauity of a christian Doctour but the matter is not great since obloquy is but basenes and the skumme of malice and that tongue which knowes not to honour cannot dishonour But now touching your learned dispute it hath I humbly thanke the Lord of Hoasts and your charitable endeauour wrought in me so much as that I well know towards what shoare I may anker and stay my heretofore floating and vnsetled iudgment I see it is already acknowledged euen by her enemies that the Church of Rome enioyed in her primitiue times a true perfect and incorrupt faith as the Apostle doth fully assure vs I see that your selfe my Lord partly by handling the Subiect in grosse partly by distribution of times in which this supposed change is dremed to haue happened partly by displaying the diuersity of the Protestants Opinions touching the first coÌ„ming of Antichrist who is said to haue beene the first who wrought this change and partly by other forcible arguments haue demonstratiuely and irrepliably euicted that since the Apostles there hath bene no change of faith made at all in the Church of Rome Finally I see that the examples of this imaginary change instanced by the Doctour who as I am aduertised hath more laboured in the search of this subiect then any other Protestant were so defectiue aâ—d maimed as that they receiue theire full answere and encounter both from your former discussed heads as also from your Lordship proouing a greater confessed antiquity of the said Articles then the instances do vrge and lostly euen from the Doctours liberall acknowledgment who plainly coÌ„fesseth that he knoweth not the time when this his change receiued it beginning Since then all these points are made so euident and vndeniable I grant they haue swaighed and ouer-ballanced my iudgment indifferently heretofore to either side enclining and haue enduced me indubiously to beleeue that the fayth of the Church of Rome at this day is as at the first it was to wit pure spotlesse and inchangeable But now seeing no man can be a perfect Christian except he actually enioy the Sacrament of Baptisme which is the first dore as you Christians teach that leadeth a man to the misteries of your Religion therefore most illustrious Cardinall I renouncing my former Iudaisme and wholy rendring my selfe a true disciple and seruant of Christ Iesus as acknowledging that the Redemption of Israell is in him come do here prostrate my selfe in desire to receiue this Sacrament euen from you that as your tongue is the cheife instrument vnder the highest for my beleefe of the Catholicke fayth so your hand may be the like instrument for the conferring vpon me the benefit of that sacred Mistery where by a man is first incorporated and as it were matriculated in the bosome of the Catholicke Church CARD BELLARM. Worthy Micheas I much ioy that our discourse hath wrought so happy a resolution in you as to embrace the Catholicke and Roman fayth and giue sole thankes to him therefore who is higher then the highest Heauen and yet as low as the Center of the earth who thus hath vouchsafed by his grace to descend to the bottome of your harte and let the remembeance of your precedent staine in Iudaisme be a spurre for your greater perfection in the Christian Religion So shall you resemble that body which receiueth it greater health from it former sicknes And be sure that euery day you encrease more and more in Christian vertues nulla dies sine linea And takeheed that you grow not lukewarme in this your resolution or come to a stand of your present feruour But remember that such motions of the soule of this nature which are stationary are therein become Retrograde since here not to go forward is to go backeward And as touching the precedent subiect of our discourse rest you assured that the faith of Christ first preached in Rome was neuer yet in any one dogmaticall point altered since it first plantation The Church of Rome was and doubtlesly is the true Church of Christ which Church is so farre from broaching change and innouation by her intertayning but any one Errour as that therefore it is most truly prophesied of it that it is a MouÌ„taine prepared in the top of Mountaines exalted about Hils It being indeed seated of such a hight as that neither the thundring fragors of the persecutours cruelty nor the windes of Hereticks speaches and endeauours were euer able to reach so high as by introducing nouelty in fayth to disioynt the setled frame thereof so true is the saying of that holy father whose fire of zeale brought him to the flames of Martyrdome adulterari non potest sponsa Christi incorrupta est et pudica Now touching your baptizing Micheas wee will take such present course therein as shall giue you all full satisfaction MICHEAS I humbly thanke your Lordship But I am further here to aduertise your Lordship that if so it might be thought lawfull and conuenient that he who heretofore denyed Christ might after be permitted to be a dispenser of the Mysteries and treasure of Christ I could then greatly wish that after I haue receiued the Sacrament of Baptisme at your hands I might be aduanced to the holy Order of Preisthood that so now in the last scene of my old age my endeauours of this nature hereafter to be attempted in the Catholicke Church might partly redeeme my former mispent labours in the Iewish Synagogue My single course of life and vnmarryed state best sorteth thereto and my owne desire is most vehement and forcing And indeed I am persuaded that the profitable talents of a good Christian ought in part to resemble the engendring riches of an vsurer who breeds vpon siluer and whose Tocòs or interest money is no sooner begotten then it begetteth So should it fare with a man of sufficiency deuoted to Christ his seruice who being become of late his adopted sonne should himselfe instantly labour to be a parent vnder Christ of other such like sonnes O how ineffable a comfort it is when a man may truly yet modestly say through his spirituall trauell fruitfully employed towardes others as your Lordship may now of me In Christo â—esu per Euangelium vos genui And how truly honourable is that profession of life which consisteth in the negotiation and trafiking as I may say of saluation of soules Et ero mercator in domo Domini Exercituum CARD BELLARM. I Commend much your great feruour herein But yet I hold it more secure to pause for a time to see whether this your resolution touching Priest hood being but the Primitiae of your spirit be steddy and permanent or whether hereafter it may alter and wauer And if so then would it follow that your present taking of that course would
rope too the Protestant promiseth reputation honour and riches Then the Vnderstanding and the Will do easily partake together to the betraying of the Soule by entertaining an erroneous Religion priuiledged with authority seconded with the streame of the tymes and aduantaged through meanes of preferring and here then that Sentence houldeth it force As gold is tryed by the stone so man by gold But let me stay my selfe I feare I haue spoken ouerlowde and the Schollers ouerhearing me out of their Colledge windows being so neare to vs may much blame this my Censure The second thing I note but pardon me most florishing Academies I protest I speake with the Apostle in charitate non ficta and not in any vpbrayding sense is that feminine Seruitours as employed for seruyle vses haue an ouer-free accesse into the Colledges a sight most strange in Catholicke vniuersityes and as Iam enformed much disliked by your owne Protestants O where vigour of youth Mansinnate propension the present inuiting obiect and the priuatnes of the place do all conspire together what dangerous effects of this Nature may they produce And we all see how apt the fyer is to take hould of any neare combustible mater But I had almost forgotten my selfe therefore leauing these poynts as meerly Perereà or impertinēcyes let vsdescend to some more serious discourse Touching my present fayth whereat you glance I grant I was a Iew both by byrth and Religion till by the infinite mercy of the Highest and the charitable endeuour of that most Illustrious and learned Cardinall in his disputes with D. Whitakers euen through waight of argument I was forced to embrace the Catholicke Fayth My Iudgement being till then but as Plato his Basatabula propending indifferently to Catholicke and Protestant and ready to receiue the wryting Impression of that Religion whichsoeuer it should be that came presented to myne eyes in the fayre attyre of venerable Antiquity OCHINVS I do much grieue Michaeas to see your candour and integrity thus distayned with the aspersion of superstition and glad I should be to lend a hand for the pulling you out of the myre of your present errours NEVSERVS Doubtlesly Michaeas your choyce of Religion hath proceeded from an indigested and raw censure which you haue made of the passages of the former disputation by you mentioned And therefore if you had gone with greater leasure therein your successe had bene the more fortunate But yet your sicknes is not vnto death fot there is tyme for your cure And since Grace and Temptation are the seedes of the Holy Ghost and the Diuell embrace that offered vnto you by God by shewing you the light of his Gospell and ouercome this being the bayte of Antichrist and my seruiseable labour shall no way be wanting to further so happy a change And the more I commiserate your present estate you erring out of Ignorance not out of malice for we see Saluation of your soule is the Circumference within which all your thoughts are bounded MICHAEAS Gentlemen I thanke you all and do interpret your words in the same language in which you did deliuer them I meane in the Dialect of your Charity And I see how ready your zeale is to take fyer vpon the least occasion of discourse Therefore assure your selues I am not ashamed of my fayth I am a Roman Catholicke at least and through the grace of God that working and efficatious Grace I meane which is the stone set in the Ring of Nature I am resolued so to liue and dye My resolution is so inalterable herein as that I trust through him who for his owne glory and in his owne Cause is euer ready to fortify the weake that your strongest assaults in dispute for I see thither your speeches tend shall not be able to beate me off the Station of my present Profession And I am the more confident in that with God causes are heard to speake not Persons And further you may rest certifyed that since the worthy Cardinals dispute with D. Whitakers I haue spent my whole tyme in the study of the Controuersies betweene the Catholicks and the Protestants and haue found diuers other most forcible inducements for my continuance in that fayth of which already I haue made election so certayne it is that the great Motion of Religion as it is newly entertayned by the iudgment turneth vpon many wheeles one still mouing and seconding another D. REYNOLDS May we entreate of you to show what Reasons are most preuayling for your not incorporating your selfe within our Protestant Church MICHEAS M. Doctour I will Besides the Argument handled betweene the Cardinall and D. Whitakers touching the supposed change of the fayth of Rome which to me still remaynes an vnauoydable Demonstration many other Reasons are and among the rest this oue I find by my perusall of Ecclesiasticall Historyes that the Protestant Church had it first being as I may say it Creation in the dayes of Luther or rather after then and not before coming out of an Abysse of Nothing Now what warrant can I haue after my leauing of the Iewish fayth which is confessed to be the true fayth for seuerall thousand yeares to implant my selfe in that Society of Christians whose Church my owne age being almost 70. is not thirty yeares elder then I am The truth of which point is euicted in that you are not able to instance the being of Protestants in any former Age. Now it is an inexpugnable verity that the Church of Christ is euer and in all ages to be most visible in her members Whereas on the contrary part some Protestants well discerning the want in their Church of this so necessary a Visibility haue bene forced to forge in their mindes a certayne imaginary and Inuisible Church and teaching that it is not necessary that the Church of Christ should be at all tymes Visible but that it may and often hath bene not only inconspicuous and inglorious but wholy latent and vnknowne But I feare I haue made an vnpleasing and ouer deepe incision in so dangerous a wound of your Church D. REYNOLDS See how the ambushment of your owne Passions I meane of preiudice and dislike betray your Iudgment And see how foulely euen in the beginning you are deceaued and how one errour in your words inuolues in it selfe a second errour For first we are ready and prepared at all tymes to prooue by particuler and most warrantable Instances that there haue bene men in euery age since the Apostles professing our Protestant Religion So farre off we are from acknowledging that the riuers of our fayth first issued out of Luthers fountayne Secondly it is your mistaking to thinke that the learned Protestants for what any Anonymous and illiterate scribler may blot his paper with by defending the contrary doctrine we regard not as acknowledging such a defect of Protestants do teach an inuisibility of the Church of Christ especially after the tymes of the comming
they may safely adioyne themselues D. Field conspireth with al the former Protestants thus saying The persons of them of whom the Church consisteth are Visible their profession knowne euen to the prophane and wiched of the world And in this sort the Church cannot be Inuisible Thus this Doctour preuenteth the answere of those who say the Church is Visible but to the Elect only The said D. Field thus reprehendeth Cardinal Bellarmine touching this point saying It is true that Bellarmine laboreth in vaine in proouing that there is and alwayes hath bene a Visible Church and that not consisting of some few scattered Christians without Order of Ministry or vse of Sacraments for all this wee do most willingly yeeld vnto how soeuer perhaps some few haue bene otherwise of Opinion But for great breuity and ommitting the like confessions herein of other remarkable Protestants D. Humfrey shall close vp this scene who enthereth into heate and passion with his Aduersaries for needelesly prouing the Churches euer Visibility For thus he writeth Cur ergo anxiè curiosè probant quod est a nobis numquam negatum Why do they meaning the Catholicks so painfully and curiously proue that which we neuer denyed And then after the said Doctour Non enim clancularij secessus conuocationes sunt Christianae the society of Christians are not secret meetings And then there againe speaking of the Church militant Oportet Ecclesiam esse conspicuam Conclusio est clarissima It is a manifest Conclusion that the Church is to be conspicuous and Visible And thus farre Gentlemen of your owne Brethren confessing with vs Catholicks the euer Visibility of the Church of God And this in so full a manner as that the wicked as D. Fyeld aboue speaketh shall take full notice and sight of it by force of which cleare testimonies those few and ignorant Protestants who confesse the Church to be Visible but not in so full a maner are preuented of their poore refuge saying The Church is Visible but not at all tymes as if the Church like the Sea enioyed a flux and reflux of it Visibility knowne but knowne only to the Elect and faythfull phantastically spoken without al colour of proofe and mainly crossing not only their owne more learned Brethren but also most repugnant to the formery mentioned Propheces of Gods sacred word and other passages thereof to the graue authority of the Primatiue Fathers and finally to al force of reason it selfe D. REYNOLDS Wee see Michaeas you are very conuersant in our owne Writers And now I hope this first point is perfected Whereupon the force of the future discourse is to relye And though thē be some difficulty to crye downe an errour or false opinion in doctrine once aduanced Neuerthelesse I trust no learned iudicious Man perusing the former authorities at large will euer dreame of an Inuisible Church being in it selfe a meere intentional Notion and hauing no subsistence or being MICHAEAS M. Doctour you say truly But now seeing it is in this next place properly incumbent vpon you and these two graue men to instance in Protestants for all ages since Christ for the Church of Christ by your owne former doctrine necessarily exacteth such a Visibility I hould it conuenient to put you al in minde of two or three points the due consideration of which may much induce to the discouery of the weaknes of such Instances which as my thoughts presage wil be hereafter insisteth vpon by you NEVSERVS You do well Michaeas to set downe those premonitions for we desire that if there shal be any defect in the future examples it may be fully displayed Therefore proceed in your Method MICHAEAS The first then of these any maduersions may be to obserue the wounderful reluctation and backwardnesse in some Protestants a manifest signe of their owne guilty defectiuenesse herein when this Catholicks presse them to giue instances of Protestancy and of the administration of the word and Sacrements For seing they wil beare men in hand that their Church hath euer continued Visible they are therefore in reasons it selfe bound as mantayning the affirmatiue part to vndertake the proose thereof Now answearably to my former Assertion I finde D Wutton speaking to his Catholicke Aduersary thus to write you wilt say shew vs where the fayth and Religion you professe where held Nay proue you that they were held no where c. And what if it could not beshewed yet we know by the articles of our Creede that there hath bene alwayes a Church in which we say this religion we professe must of necessity be held c. This stands vpon you to disproue which when you do by particular Records you shall haue particular answere Then which what can be spoken first more absurdly as expecting records of things which neuer were in being He furthermore transferring the part of prouing vpon Catholicks to which himselfe and his fellowes only stand obliged Secondly what can discouer more their vnablenessein guing examples of Protestancy during the former ages The like dispairing Answere D Fulke vseth vpon the same point saying to his Aduersary Proferre me iubes teto orbe latitantes vah quam iniquum postulas Thou willest me to produce and name those which did lye secret through out the World how iniust a thing dost thou here demand The second Obseruation Seing the Church of God is at al times and seasons without the least discontinuance thereof to be Visibile and to enioy a publike administration of the Word and Sacraments as aboue we al haue proued That therefore such Instances of Protestancy which may be giuen by you hereafter supposing them to be true do but iustify Visibility of your Church only for so long no longer as the said Protestants did liue And therefore except you be able to produce examples of Protestancy for al ages since Christ if you do fayle herein but for any one only age it necessarily followeth that Church of the Protestants as wanting this vninterrupted Visibility is not the Church of Christ described in the old Testament and their prophecyed of in so many different places The third and last Obseruation That one may truly and iustly be called a Protestant two things among others must necessatily concurre The one that he do mantayne al the chiefest points of Protestancy Thus he is not to hould only some few points of Protestancy and in the rest being more in number and of greater importance to pertake with the Catholicks seeing such a Man is rather as beleiuing more Articles of Catholicke Religion then of Protestancy to be reputed a Catholicke then a Protestant for his denomination is to be giuen him rather according to the greater and weightier number of Articles beleeued by him ther otherwise though to speake the truth such a Man so beleeuing is formally neither Catholicke not Protestant The second thing necessary to the being of a Protestant is that he doth not hould pertinaciously any
who in externall profession of fayth did in any sort dissent from them And you know how aduerse Aduersity is to Mans inclination And therfore the lesse wounder if the rayes of protestancy were in former tymes ouerclowded with the mysts of persecution MICHAEAS Indeed I haue read that Antonius sadellius a protestant of no vulgar note giueth this reason of the latency of his Church and of the want of administration of the word and Sacrament in former ages with whom it seemes you Newserus in iudgment do ioyne But to poyze the weight of this reason Where first I must put you in mind that it being approoued maketh the protestant Church to be wholy inuisible in former tymes and so destroyeth the mayne Thesis or Tenet mantayned by you all in the begining of this disputation who ioyntly did auer that the Protestant Church was in all ages visible the professours of it were knowne and discernable But to let that passe Thus I argue in further disproouall of this your poore refuge The Church of God vnder persecution eyther communicateth openly with the false visible Church in participation of Sacraments and externall profession of Fayth Or els she doth refraine from all such externall communion If she doth not communicate with it then by such her refrayning she is made knowne and consequently is become therevisible If she doth communicate with a false and idolatrous Church as you repute the Church of Rome to be then is she not the true Church since the true Church cannot brooke any such dissimulation I will enlarge my selfe vpon the seuerall parts of this Argument And first that the true Church by not communicating with a false Church is in regard of the persecution comming thereby made visible is cleere euen in reason it selfe For who are persecuted but Men that are knowne And how can one lying secretly and vnknowne be sayd to be persecuted A point so euident that M. Curtwright confesseth that the Church vnder persecution is visible and sensible for els sayth he how could it be persecuted Yea he further thus contesteth with his Aduersary saying To let passe both Scriptures and storyes Ecclesiasticall haue you forgotten what is sayd in the first of Exodus that the more the children of Israel were persecuted the more they encreased With whom agreeth M. Iewell saying The Church is placed vpon a mount her persecutions cannot be hid I may truly ad herto that the greater and more violent the persecution is the more visible knowne and conspicuous is the Church made thereby like to a ship which the more it is tossed with waues and storms the higher to the eye it appeareth or like vnto an Arch in building which the greater weight and burden it beares the more strong and firme it remaynes The truth of which point is further warrantable from the example of the persecution in the Primitiue Church which of all pressures of the Church was incomparably the greatest And yet we find that the particular Bishops Confessours Martyrs are euen to this day made knowne who they were and what Heresyes or false Religion they impugned And this from the penns not only of Catholicke Historiographers but euen of Protestants of which subiect you may peruse the Centurists Pantaleon Functius Osiander and M. Fox And may not the English Catholicks if I be truly informed deseruedly here insist in the Examples of their owne Nation The Catholicks whereof in regard of their former persecutions in Queene Elizabeth her reigne are so far from being latent and inuisible as that they were become most famous remarkable throughout all Christendome O pietatem de crudelitate lndentem Are not the names and memoryes of those reuerend Priests and others of the Laity to speake nothing of many worthy Confessours and others suffering great losses and disgraces who lost their liues in her dayes only for Religion whose blessed soules I humbly beseech to interceede and pray for me to our Sauiour Are not their names and memories I say euen to this day fresh and liuing haue their deaths obliterated extinguished their memoryes or rather through a speaking silence perpetuated and eternized them their liues being by this meanes extended beyond their liues Who by reason of their then calamities and pressures too well knowne to God and Man became balls to that state and might iustly complayne in the words of the Apostle Spectaculum facti sumus mundo Angelis Hominibus Such were the stormy flouds innundations and ouerflowings of persecution in the sayd Queenes tyme. But to returne and to apply this here said If the Catholicks in this Country being but a small part of Christendome could not but for some few number of yeares in comparison escape the search and hands of their persecutors but became therby most visible and knowne the very Ayre ecchoing forth their miseryes How could then the Protestants being supposed to be dispersed throughout many Nations lye hid and auoid for so many ages together as is pretended the force of that persecution which is affirmed by our Aduersaryes to haue bene far more greiuous then euer this of England was NEVSERVS I pray you Michaeas descend to the second part of your former Argument And first tell me your iudgment if it be not lawfull for auoyding of losse of goods or death it selfe sometymes to conceale our Religion MICHAEAS No we neuer ought to conceale our profession of fayth for feare of any punishment how great soeuer for here nolle confiteri negare est And though we are not to importune persecution for this were to tempt God or to take a spirituall pride in our afflictions for our Profession of fayth yet if the temporall Prince do impose any miseryes vpon vs our Religion we are with all alacrity Christian magnanimity patiently to endure the same euer continuing in our former Religion loyalty and obedience and powring cut our daily prayers to the Almighty that he would vouchsafe to touch the sayd Princes hart with commiseration of our despicable and betrampled estates and to grant him all true temporall and eternall happines our selfs in the meane tyme euer remayning confortable Quid hic mali est cuius reus gaudet cuius accusatio votum est paena faelicitas But I will come to the second branch which contayneth the reason of this my Assertion Which was That if the Church of Christ doth communicate with a false and idolatrous Church she ceaseth ipso facto to be the true Church of God This is most euident out of Gods sacred Writ which teacheth vs. that with the hart a man beleiueth vnto Iustice and with the mouth confesseth vnto saluation Which text is truly paraphrazed by D. Field in these words Seing the Church is the multitude of them that shal be saued And no man can be saued vnlesse he make Confession â—nto saluation for fayth hid and concealed in the hart
contrary to the necessary Visibility of Gods true Church proued out of the Scriptures acknowledged by their owne learned Brethren their owne Church to haue beene wholy latent and inuisible or rather wholy extinct and annihilated for so many ages together But this we must asâ—rybe O God to thy holy permission who as thou suffered in the tyme of the Old TestameÌ„t thyne Enemyes to sheath their swords in their brethrens sydes so heare thoâ— permiteest for the greater honour of thy Church so many learned Protestants euen with wounderfull admiration sweete Iesus deadly to wounde their owne Church fayth and Religion with their owne penns D. REYNOLDS Forbeare Michaeas these woundering Interiections the accustomed Dialect of an vngouerned Passion I grant these learned Protestants aboue alledged were of this opinion Notwithstanding to confront their authorityes there may be found many others as learned and iudicious Protestants as these are who absolutly mantayne the Visibility of their Church for all ages And I see no reason but that the sentences and iudgemeÌ„ts of these other should preponderate and weighe equally with the iudgements of the former Protestants by you alledged MICHAEAS You must pardon me M. Doctour if I wounder at things so strangly and vnexpectedly fauling out But to your solution I say it is most defectiue for seuerall reasons First because it mainly crosseth the method agreed vpon amonge vs in the beginninge of our discourse where you tyed your selfe irrephâ—ably to stand to the iudgments and confession of your owne learned Men. Againe though you can bringe other Protestants of as greate eminency for learninge as these by me obiected yet except you and the said Protestants will insist in true and confessed Instances of Protestancy for euery seuerall age which is impossible for you to performe your and their asseuerations are to be reputed but naked verball and inauayleable Lastly and principally your Replye is insufficient Becaus I heare alledge Protestants confessinge the Inuisibility of their owne Church to their owne mighty preiudice and the Catholycks greate aduantage And therefore it must needs be that the racke of Truth forced them being otherwyse ingenuous learned and iudicious to all such Confessions Whereas such Protestants as may be brought to gainsay and contradict the former Confession as being men of more spatious and large Consciences do spake in their owne cause and behalf and therefore as being ready pressed to auere any thinge how false soeuer for the safery of their Church are deseruedly to be reputed in their wrytings more partiall So as in this case the Words of Tertullian may iustly take place Magis fides prouâ— est in aduersus sometâ—psos confitentâ—â— quam pro 〈◊〉 â—egantes NEVSERVS I lyke well Michaeas the reason of your disparity geuen touching some Protestants confessing against themselfs and others affirming the contrary to their owne aduantage OCHINVS The difference set downe by you is most foreible for no doubte the open Confession of one learned Aduersary is to ouerballance twenty denying the same euen for that peculiar reason aboue mentioned D. REYNOLDS Michaeas Suppose for the tyme that we could not proue our Churches perpetuali Visibility yet seinge you are not able if you were pressed thereto to iustify and make good the Visibility of your owne Roman Church during all the ages since the Apostles dayes Therefore looke into what danger through our confessed Inuisibility we may be presumed to tune within the same we may justly includ you And thus you owne argument rebucts vpon your selfe MICHAEAS Heare I see M. D. that for meare want of positiue arguments to support your owne Church you are lastly fled to picke quarrells at our Church as if it were a iustification of yourselfs that wee Catholycks did labour with your infirmities lyke men who reioyce to haue compartuers in misery But to your point vrged say it is impertinent to the whole drift of our dispute which was only touching the want of Visibility in the Protestant Church which alone to proue was by me vndertaken the visibilitye of the Catholycke Church comminge in incidently lyke as a discours of vice doth often in the End biget some specches of Vertue our Contrary being thus brought to our remembrance by meanes of the other Contrary But because M. D. you shall discouer no tergiuersation in vs herein and that here to entreate of the continuall Visibility of our Catholycke Church violateth our former imposed method Therefore I will pawne my credit that there shal be left with you certaine prouffs conâ—ayninge the expresse and confessed Visibility of our Roman Church from the Apostles to these dayes And this by the acknowledgment of sundry learned Protestants though heare by the way I must tell you that the confessed Inuisibility of the Protestant Church during so many former Ages doth potentially and vertually include the proufe of the Visibility of our Roman Church during the said ages Seing the Inuisibility of your Church for so longe a tyme is ascribed by you Protestants as appeareth by many of the former Protestants testimonyes to be the worke of Antichtist you meaninge thereby the Pope and the Church of Rome therefore it ineuitably followeth from your owne Primisses that Popes and the Church of Rome haue euer beene visible during all the said former Ages and Centuryes OCHINVS Newserus I would haue a word or two with you in priuate therefore if it please you let vs walke a little a part NEVSERVS I am willingthereto go into the next roome and I will follow you OCHINVS You see here Neuserus how this Question of the Protestant Churches visibility hath bene discussed and argued And I must consesse that Michaeas hath euen in replicably demonstrated that the Protestant Church hath at least for many ages bene inuisible or rather extinct you see also how royatous and abounding the old Testamentâ—s in prophecyes and other testimonies that the Church in the daye of the true Messias shal be at all cyâ—res most conspicuous and visible Therefore what resteth but that eyther we must reiect the old Testament which I neuer will do for falsly prophetying of the state of the Church Or els we must denye that these tymes of the new Testament are the tymes of Grace that the Church erected by Christ and his Apostles as wanting the accomplishment of the foresayd predictions is the true Church which later poynt I hould to be more probable NEVSERVS You haue preuented me Ochinus in tyme of speaking but not in iudgment For to confesse the truth after I had obserued the weaknes of the Instances alledged though alledged by the Doctour with as much Scholarlike Art and aduantage as might be my houering thoughts transported my iudgment to this your Center Which though it be enuironed with difficultyes yet I hould it the more safe way with you since the one must necessarily be reiected as false and erroneous they so diametrically crossing one the other to retayne our former reuerence to
points touching fayth and Religion and different from the then Roman fayth wherewith Waldo Wicklefe Hus c. were then charged would be professed beleâ—ued and mantayned in these dayes by the enemyes of the Church of Rome And therefore it necessarily followeth that the accusations passed in former times vpon Waldo Wicklefe Hus and the rest are either in generall true or in generall false If false then haue we no sufficient Records that there were any in those dayes who beleiued any points of protestancy If true then certayne it is that as Waldo Wicklefe Hus c. mantayned some points of protestancy so with all that they mantayned diuers explorate Heresies and acknowledged for such both by Catholicks and Protestants Secondly the Pamphleter obiected in the Catholicks name in this sort None of all those which hitherto haue beene named or can be named meaning for Protestants but in some knowne confessed and vndowbted Opinions did varye from you And therefore they and you Protestants may not be said to be all of one Church This difficulty he salueth with a most impudent and bare denyall saying All those whom before I haue named did generally for all mayne Matters teach the same Which we now teach What forhead or shame hath this Man For First as touching Waldo Wiclef Hus and their followers in whom through out this Pamphlet the Authour principally insisteth It is confessed by Osiander Luther Fox and other Protestants as also it appeareth by some of their owne Wrytings that they agreed with the Catholicks in most points of Catholicke Religion which were of greatest moment as in the Reall Presence seuen Sacrements praying to Saincts Purgatory frewill Merit of Works and in all other most principall Articles of the present Roman Religion Concerning the proufe of all which poynts I remit the Reader to the Former Dialogue Secondly touching other obscure Men alledged by the Pamphleter for Protestants he commonly and for the most part some two or three excepted exemplifieth no other Article of Protestancy defended by them then their disobedience and inueighing against the Bishop of Rome But if he could haue iustly auerred them for Protestants in all chiefe Articles why would he not as well particulary set the said Articles of Protestancy downe as he did the other touching their disclayming from the authority of the Bishop of Rome Ad hereto that many are produced for Protestants by this Authour only for their sharply speaking and writing against the manners and conuersation of the Cleargy in those dayes they not dissenting from the doctrine of the then Church of Rome in any one article whatsoeuer euer euen ackuowledging the Primacy of that Sea To all the former poynts I may adioyne this following Consideration That supposing the forsaid alledged Men were protestants in all poynts yet do they not proue the Visibility of the true Church of Christ for these Reasons ensuing First because they were but few in number and in regard of such their paucity the Predictions of the amplitude largnes and continuall splendour of Christ Church could not be performed in that small number Touching which predictions peruse the beginning of the Dialogue Secondly because neither this Authour nor any other Protestant liuing how learned soeuer can proue that there were in those tymes specified by this Pamphleter any Administration of the Word and Sacraments practized by any of these supposed Protestants which euer necessarily concurs to the existence and being of the true Church as is demonstrated in the former Tract Thirdly because the former Men could but serue for instances during their owne lyues and no longer The Pamphleter not being able to name any one Man for a Protestant for the space of many Ages and Centuryes together which poynt being so impugneth not only the Nature of Christs true Church which must at all tymes and ages be most visible but also it crosseth the Title of this Pamphlet wherein the Authour vndertaketh to proue the Visibility of his Church in all Ages Thus far now Good Reader I haue labored in surueighing this Idle Pamphlet Now for they better memory I will breifly recapitulate and repeate certaine chiefe impostures and deceatefull deportements practized by this Authour throughout his Booke And then I will remit both him and his Treatise to they owne impartiall Iudgment 1. First then I may remember his putting no name to his Booke nor taking any Notize of the then late Conference in London touching the Visibility of the Protestant Church nor once naming M. Fisher and M. Sweete the two then disputants Which concealed Cours our Pamphleter purposly affected in all probability seing otherwise he might well thinke that the setting of his owne Name downe especially if the Authour were either D. Whyte or D. Featly or hauing in this discours particular reference to the foresaid Disputation might sooner draw on an answere to his Pamphlet from one of the said two Fathers or from some other Priest 2. Secondly You may call to mynd that in the first part of his Treatise he laboreth to proue rather the Inuisibility of the true Church then the Visibilitie thereof contrary to the Inscription of his Pamphlet cheifly to intimate thereby that a continuall Visibility of the true Church is not so necessarily to be exacted as we Catholicks do teach it is and consequently that what few weake mayâ—ied and imperfect proufs and examples for the continuance of protestancy he was after to alledge the same might be thought sufficient and strong enough for the establishing of his owne Churches Visibility 3. Thirdly The pamphleter callengeth any one for a Protestant who did but hould one or two Articles of protestancy and especially if he did but impugne the Popes authority or did wryte against the Manners conuersation of the Cleargy of those dayes though otherwyse he did agree with the Church of Rome in all Articles of fayth 4. Fourthly He callengeth those for protestants who were condemned by the Church of Rome for other Errours then are mantayned by the protestants so making the ignorant Reader beleiue that the Pope in those dayes condemned only the doctrines of Protestants for Heresies this the pamphleter doth to the end that the number of the professours of his Church in those dayes might seeme the greater in his Readers eye 5. Fyftly he most cauteously concealeth the Catholicke doctrynes euer beleiued by Hus Wiclefe Waldo c. as also sic most falsly extenuateth such Heresies as they mantayned are acknowledged for Heresies euen by learned protestaÌ„ts The Treatizer subtelly forbearing to name or set downe in expres Words any one of their Heresies 6. Sixtly For want of better Authours he fleeth to the testimonyes euen of Poëts as Chaucer Daâ—â—es Petrarch vrging them for protestants only by reason of their Satyrs written against the supposed abuses of Rome 7. Seauently he most impertinently dilateth and spreadeth hymselfe in long and tedious discourses touching the increase of the Doctrine of Waldo Hus Wiclef
should become accessory to our owne hurt to suffer such a man to passe vn punished Therefore I hope your Lordship will not preserue him whoÌ„ the Law hath ouerthrowne nor suffer his present calamity how great soeuer it may seeme to attract from your cleere iudgment commiseration pitty But rather you will vouchsafe to remember that he doubteth his crime who masketh it vnder the tecture of Religion This is that Michaeas homo pestiferus concitans seditionem who after his disputation in our Vniuersity with the most learned D. Reynolds made show presently to leaue our vniuersity and to retire himselfe into some forayne Countrey But many months haue since that time passed He during all the whyle secretly lourking among vs so the Spidar lyes close to surprise the incautelous flee seeketh to get priuate acquaintance with diuers eminent Maisters of Arts and others of the yonger sort Which being obtayned he then enuenometh their iudgments with Superstition and Idolatry and with his other Romish positions breathing disobedience disloyalty against the Magistrate And indeed he hath such a facility by slye and subtill insinuations to serue himselfe within the Schollars affections as that it is most wounderfull For first he commonly beginneth a farre off to talke with them of the nature of other Countreyes and of his owne trauells in other vniuersityes to which discourses our Schollars do lend their greedy eares before euer he entreth to talke of Religion And so like a good tabler he vsually playeth with them an aftergame the more speedily to come to his designed end The hurt which he hath already perpetrated in our vniuersity which is one of the two eyes of the whole Realme is great and insufferable and your Lordship well knowes that if the eye be wicked then all the Body shal be darke Therefore now at the lenght hauing apprehended him I haue conuerted him before your Lordship that so he may be punished by the Law who hath transgressed the Law LORD-CHEIFE IVSTICE Stand forth Michaeas Many and greiuous you see are the complaints giuen vp agaynst you from which you must either truly vindicate your selfe by being faultles therein or otherwise you must vndergoe the chastisment appointed for such offences And though we Iudges be ordayned to punish what is euill yet we are to wish that men do not prooue themselues euill And therefore I desire that your Innocency if innocent you be may be here cleared for I hould it a farre greater ouersight to punish the guiltles then to leaue vnpunished the guilty Since Iustice instructeth vs not to delight in punishment but to recurre to it for playne necessity Now speake Michaeas what you can in your owne defence MICHAEAS My Lord. I do heare first prostrate myselfe in all Humility before your Honour resting glad that though my accuser haue wronged me by thus falsly traducing me before your L. yet that it is my fortune to appeare before such a Iudge with whom Innocency shall find it sanctuary and only true faults be corrected for I presume that that sentence of the Psalmist is euen imprinted and sealed vp in your hart Rectè iudicate filij hominum Now for my more iust defense your L. may heare be aduertized that I am a Iew by byrth and Nation and a Roman by Religion and do hould that Ierusalem I meane the Church of Rome which is vpon earth the spirituall Ierusalem is the place where Men ought to worship I came into this florishing Kingdome only through my greate desire of seeing your famous and so much celebrated Vniuersityes with intention of returne in a conuenient tyme. Now I trust my L. I speake it vnder correction of your more experienced Iudgment that I as being a stranger and not borne within these dominions do not stand precisly subiect to the lawes of the said dominions And therefore what I haue committed suppose most to be true as most of it is false may well be an errour in me but any heinous cryme as now it is exagitated it cannot be And further euery Man well knowes that euen by the lawe of Nations the very name of a stranger who in this respect cannot take particular notise of the Municipall statuts and Ordinances of the Realme doth pleade excuse for many Transgressions the committers whereof being borne subiects are seuerely and deseruedly punished Therefore my L. since Lawes are made rather to succour then to wound Mankynd I dowbt not but your L. will heare dispence with all sterne seuerity and will remember that saying of an auncient Father Facilius Ira quam Indulgentia obliqua est VICE CHANCELOVR See you not my L. how this Polypragmon this Michaeas dare not only without feare violate the lawes of our Realme but also will needs braue it before your Lorship that for being a stranger and not borne in our Nation he stands not subiect to the said Lawes and thereupon doth iustify his impietyes but it seemes he gloryes to be extremly facinorous Est mali dignitas quod in summo pessimorum collocetur L. CHEIFE-IVSTICE Michaeas Your Plea heare is most weake and defectiue for though you be a stranger and as you say not borne vnder the lawes of our Dominions yet you must know that you had leasure enoughe to be acquainted with our Lawes before you entred into our Country or at lest within short tyme after And you must conceaue that the Lawes being made by the consent of the whole Realme are not to be violated in fauour of any one Man Furthermore where you speake of Priuiledges and Indulgences allowed to strangers euen by all Nationall Lawes you must â—â—ke notize that these fauours are imparted to strangers with some conditions and restrictions to wit if the bad compâ—rtment and cariadge of the said strangers do not worthely 〈◊〉 them of participating of the said Priuiledges since otherwise no reason there is why they should be partakers of them And indeed the lesse reason because in tyme of Necessity when the Prince is to command aydes forces or Tributs from his subiects no such releife and helps can be expected at the hands of any strangers resyding in his Country Lastly it were repugnant to the nature of Iustice which in it selfe is euer sacred and inuiolable that a stranger such an one as you Michaeas are by comming into a forrayne Country and as it were by indeuizing hymselfe for the tyme should become a subiect in the fruition of the benefits of the said Country And yet when he would performe any vnlawfull act he should of new create himselfe a stranger Therefore Michaeas my iudgment here is that you stand obnoxions and subiect to our lawes And therefore you must either plead yourselfe innocent in the obiected Crymes or els the Lawes of our Realme will iustly take hould of you What say you therefore to the offences wherewith you heere stand charged MICHAEAS Well my good Lord since it is so I humbly submit myselfe
others particularityes where Michaeas hath offended against the Soueraignty of Princes VICE-CHANCELOVR My L. I will You haue di 〈…〉 gled Michaeas to your sollowers that the Pope hath full authority to detâ—one Kings and Princes though neuer so absolute at his pleasure And further Papists teach that the spirituall Iurisdiction residiâ—g in the Pope ought to haue that predominancy ouer all temporall authority which the soule hath ouer the body To be short this poynt to wit that your Popisâ— Religion doth teache rebellion insurrection of the subiects against their lawfull Prince is so cleare as that we may well say Papistry and Disloyalty are almost Termini conuertibiles for though some disloyall Men are not Papists yet euery Papist in that he is a Papist is to his soueraigne Protestant Prince disloyall MICHAEAS You are glad M. Viach to moysten this your drye accusation in the froath of many idle and splenfull words Your accusation stands vpon two poynts First you charge me in particular for disseminating of disloyalty in your Vniuersity That being only said you make in lieu of further proofe thereof a subâ—â—ll transition to the doctryne of other Catholicks in that poynt As if what were wanting to the perfecting of my supposed Cryme therein ought to be made vp by the accession and application to me of other Catholicke Doctours wrytings of that subiect Now to the first I answere It is a most false Calumny forged in your owne brayne and wrought vpon the anuile of Maliâ—e For produce if you can the parties to whom I euer vttered such a Doctrine the Place or the Tyme Where or when such speeches were deliuered Thus we see that this your report as being in it selfe most false is wholy disuested of all Circumstances necessarily attending vpon euery humane Action For euen to reâ—cyle the secrets of my soule herein I did in all my discourses with your Scholars purposely auoyde as a seamarke all such questions of State so vnwilling I euer was but to touch vpon those dangerous sands And for the greater demonstration of my Innocency herein and of my Loyalty to his Maiesty of England I here acknowledge and in this acknowledgement I do for the tyme depose and put of the person of Michaeas and speake in my owne person the Authour of this Treatise and in the name of all other Priests and Catholicks of England all layalty and fidelity to our most gracious and dread soueraigne King Charles and to his most illustrious and worthy Queene beseeching the Almighty to graunt him a fruitfull bed and to make him Parent of many noble Children And further I humbly pray to the Highest that he may in all tranquillity and true happynes raigne ouer vs many yeres and after his dissolution of Body that he may equall in euerlasting Be atitude the greatest Sainct of his Predecessours now in Heauen This is my Protestation made in all sincerity and in which by Gods grace euen to my last gaspe I intend to continue and perseuer But now to resume my former shape of Michaeas Touching the first point of my accusation M. Vice-Chancelour you see how cleere and innocent I am I will now hasten to the second branch contayning as you say the doctrine of Disloyalty taught euen by all the Doctours of the Roman Church First I answere It is a most iniust slander obtruded vpon them by you since not any one Catholicke Doctour teacheth nor aone good lay Catholicke beleiueth that the Pope can at his ny pleasure depose Princes and transferre Kingdomes and states as to him best liketh Secondly I reply that seeing you neuer cease to vpbraid our Catholicke Religion with the foule stayne of disloyalty this being your other Protestants common Theame wherein you so much ryout in malignant exagerations Therefore as awakened by your so often ingeminated accusation herein I do auouch pardon me most Reuerend Iudge if being thus prouoked I enter into a Subiect perhapps vngratefull to you that the Protestants do by infinit degrees stand more reprehensible in this poynt of disloyalty and disobedience towards their Prince then we Catholicks do And this I will prooue if I may be suffered at this present against you M. Vice-Chancelour first from the positions and speculatiue assertions of the most learned Protestants and after from the actuall insurrections and rebellions of Protestants against their lawfull Princes VICE-CHANCELOVR This is the Scene Michaeas of men of your disposition that when you are truly charged with your owne faults then in place of better answere you insimulate by way of recrimination your Aduersaryes within the same faults But it seemes by you that dotage is the accustomed Attendant of old age or that you take a delight and complacency to haue the subiect of disloyalty often in your mouth as you euer haue it in your hart But begin at your pleasure to charge vs Protestants if you can either with the doctrine or practize of disloyalty My Lord-Iudge I know will giue you leaue who in the end shall perceaue that all what you can imagine in this point is but meete imagination and no reall Truth And so in your discours you will resemble that Man who dreames he doth but dreame MICHAEAS O wound not M. Vice-Chancelour my reputation with these Philippicks and declamatory Inuectiues so much hurtfull euen to the speaker for quomodo placabit Patrem iratus in fratrem And rest satisfyed that I do not solace myselfe as you suggest in this vnpleasing Text but do acquaint my selfe with discourses of that subiect with the like intention that the morall Philosopher doth busy himselfe with the nature of Vice which is the better to auoid Vice L. CHEIFE-IVSTICE Michaeas I must needs now say that you do infinitly wrong our Religion by ascrybing both to the chiefe Doctours and Professours of it this odious Cryme of Disloyalty and Rebellion No no. Our Gospell which cometh from God best teacheth our duty towards the Lieutenants of God I presume that herein you rest but vpon the bare and naked speeches of others of your owne Religion our designed enemyes But you must remember that as things which are seene by reflexion are imperfectly seene so reports and bruits taken only at the rebound of partiall mens mouths deserue but a light eare But seeing it is the part of a Iudge to heare all sides with an indifferent eare you may Michaeas at your pleasure begin your discours of this your assumed Argument where I doubt not but M. Vice Chancelour will sufficiently repell all your reasons and answere to your examples to the greater Honour of our Religion which is a free from all stayne and blot of disloyalty as an intemerate virgin is free from any defyled touch Therefore Proceede MICHAEAS My L. I will And I must entreate your Patience herein as desirous to abstayne from geuing the lest iust offence to your L. And touching this subiect I dowbt litle but that howsoeuer you are as yet perswaded
after I haue finished my Discours your morning and more retyred thoughts will at lest in the secrets of your owne Iudgment geue an other censure hereof And I will begin in deliuering the Positions doctrines which the most accomplished Protestants for literature haue left of this Argument in their Bookes and wrytings And first do we not find Luther euen to denye all secular principality as most vnlawful now in these Christian dayes For thus he wryteth Among Christian Men none is superiour saue one and only Christ As also more fully Among Christians no man can or ought to be a Magistrate but eich one is to other equally subiect And further in contempt of all Magistrats touching matters of Religion he thus discourseth As Christ caÌ„not suffer hymselfe to be tyed and bound by Lawes c. So ought not the Conscience of a Christian to suffer them And more Yf the Ciuil Magistrate should contend that his Commandements be necessary to saluation then as it is said of the Traditions of the Papists the contrary is to be donne Thus we find that Luther is not affraid not only to impugne all Magistracy and domination in certaine cases but he is also not ashamed to dogmatize and teach in his wrytings that there neither are nor ought to be any true souerainty or Princes at all now in the dayes of Christ To which Princes partly their Eminency graced with Pompe and state but chiefly an innate imbred Obedience to Power and Maiesty God and Nature making that now good which law of man did first ordayne induce men to exhibit all due reuerence and veneration In compare of whom euen the greatest subiects are to seeme but priuate obscure like the brightest starrs which are darkened in the presence of a fayrer light VICE CHANCELOVR Touching Luther Michaeas you must know that although we acknowledge him to haue been a great instrument of God for the reuealing in these later tymes the Gospell of Christ yet we grant that in some points he varyed from the Truth and particularly in denying all Magistracy and Principality But all other cheife Professours of our Religion concurrently teach with vs the lawfulnes of Princes and all due Obedience vnto them MICHAEAS M. Vice-Chancelour If Luther by your owne acknowledgment did erre in this point how then can you rest assured that he did not erre in other points of fayth first by him broached and after entertayned by you Since he had no better warrant for teaching the truth in the one then in the other and it is certayne that a manifest errour but in one point carryeth with it a possibility of erring in any other point But to come to your answere I say the contrary thereto will presently appeare For is it not euident that Swinglius a man of extraordinary note among you thus teacheth Quando perfide extra regulam Christi egerint Principes possunt deponâ— When Princes do euill and contrary to the rule of Christ they may be deposed Thus Swinglius who there warranteth this his doctrine from the example of Saule whom God deposed although afore he designed him King Yea Swinglius thus further proceedeth Due reuerence it to be promised to Caesar if so be permitteth to vs our Religion inuiolable Thus intimating that if the Prince doth not permit Religion then no honour is to be giuen but resistance is to be made Swinglius furthermore continueth his former discours in these very words Romanum Imperium â—mâ— quâ—duâ—s aliud Imperium vbi religionem sinceram opprimere caperit c. If the Roman Emperour or any other Prince or Soueraigne shall beginne to oppresse the sincere Religion nos illud negligentes patimâ— c. And we negligently suffer the same We shall stand charged with contempt thereof as much as euen the oppâ—essours themselues An assertion so much displeasing to other more sober and quyet Protestants that D. Bilson doth rest much distâ—sted with those words of Swinglius saying in lieu of further answere to them As I muse at Swiâ—glius his words so I like not his iudgment VICE-CHANCELOVR Mich 〈…〉 You know well that Swinglius and Luther liued both in one tyme togeather I meane then when though many Articles of the 〈◊〉 were by them discouered yet all were not discouered but happâ—ly they might mantayne some errours The Sunne of Christs Gospell not as then arriuing to it Meridian and full ascent And indeed it is a kind of imperfection and as I may tearme it a signe of an ouer rigid nature to expect in the wâ—yters of those firster tymes no imperfection at all But now in these more late and refyned dayes the Professours of the Gospell haue wholy exploded the former doctrine of Luther and Swinglius herein For what Men do more aduance defend the dignity and soueraignty of Princes then we do in our Sermons and other our priuat Conferences MICHAEAS If you do so much magnify in your Pulpitts as you say you do the regallity of Princes it is to the end that in the close I speake only but of some of you you may the better vndermyne them all like the earth which for the tyme nurrisheth all Creatures yet finally deuoureth all Creatures But because you reply that the Professours comming after Luther and Swinglius cannot be blemished in their wrytings with any spot of disloyalty Therefore to follow you in your owne method therein I will come by degrees from Luther and Swinglius euen to these our dayes and so descending in tymes I will ascend in weight and force of Argument And now to come to Caluin who next in tyme succeeded Swiglius and towards whom most of you Protestants do commit a Kynd of Idolatry It is ouer euident that Caluin thus wryteth of Princes and their authority Earthly Princes do depr 〈…〉 themselfs of authority when they erect themselfs against God yea they are vnworthy to be accounted in the number of Men and we are rather to spit vpon their fâ—ces then to obey them Thus we se that Caluin teacheth that Princes commanding thiâ—gs vnlawfull do vtterly depryue themselfs of all authority and regality where with a fore they were inuâ—sted With which former Words of Caluin D. Wilks no vulgar ProtestaÌ„t doth vppraid the Puritans in this sort They were your teachers who account those Princes who are not resined by their spirit vnworthy to be accounted among the number of Men and therefore rather to be spitted vpon then obeyed They were your teachers who defend Rebellion against Princes of a different Religion Thus D. Wilkâ— To come next to Beza He was so full and intemperate in ouerthrowing the authority of Princes as that he did purposely wryte a booke of this very Subiect styling it De 〈◊〉 Magistratuum in subâ—â—tos a booke much dislyked by D. Bancroft the late Arch Bishop of Canterbury and D. Succlâ—ffe Which Doctour tâ—us censureth thereof Beza in his booke of the
power of Magistrats doth arme the subiects against their France in these cases c. And further Beza m roundly teacheth what reason haue Christians to obey hym that is Satans slâ—ue And yet speaking more of that Booke of Beza he saith a booke which ouerthroweth in effect all authority of Christian Magistrats To contract this poynt touchinge Beza Beza hymselfe thus wryteth in one of his Epistles to a friend of his Pâ—rplaceâ— mihi c. It pleaseth me very much that you wryte that priuate Conuents and assemblyes are to be made without the authority of Princes And againe in the said epistle Si pijs semper expectandum putas dum lupi vltro cedant c. Yf you thinke we must stay the delayes of godly men till the woulâ—es do freely depart or are driuen away by publyke authority I cannot yeald to your iudgment therein c. And if we had made such delayes What Churches should wee haue had at this day Thus far of the doctrines of Caluin and Beza in this poynt concerning both which in generall I will set downe the iudgment of therfore named D. Bancroft passed vpon them both who thus wryteth He that shall reede M. Caluins and M. Bezaes two bookes of Epistles c. Would certainly meruayle to vnderstand into what actions and dealings they put themselfs of war of peace of subiection of reformation without staying for the Magistrate Thus he Next we will come to kâ—ox who thus teacheth Reformation of Religion belorgeth to the Communalty God hath appoynted the Nobility to bridle the inordinate appetits of Princes Princes for iust cause may be deposed Finally Knox further auoucheth in these words Yf Princes be tyraâ—ts against God and his Truth their Subiects are freed from the oath of obedyence Of all which passages of Knoâ—see D. Bancroft in his booke of dangerous Positions Neither his Collegue Bucanan is lese sparing herein for thus he teacheth The People haue right to bestow the Crowne at their pleasure And yet with â—at more debasing spyte he thus egurgiâ—ates his veâ—ome It were good that rewards were appointed by the People for such 〈◊〉 should kill Tyrants as commonly there is for those which haue killed vulues Finally Bucanan affirmeth that People may arraigne their Prince Now in regard of these impious positions of Knox and Bucanan I fully approue and allow the graue sentence of the Bishop of Rochester who in his Sermon at Pooles Church termeth these two men The two fiery spirits of the Church and Nation of Scotland VICE-CHANCELOVR Michaeas Notwithstanding what you heere haue alleged touching strangers yet no part thereof conceâ—neth the Church of England or it Members Our Church remayning most incontaminate fâ—ee and spotles from the lâ—ast tuch of disloyalty And therefore what is by you as yet hearesaid concerneth vs litle you only discouering your Ignorance in misapplying other mens doctrines to vs who wholy disclayme from the same MICHAEAS M. Vice-Chancelour Pardon me if I heere do say you charge my Ignorance with greater Ignorance For first are not your Protestants of England of the same fayth and Religion with Luther Swâ—nglius Caluin Beza and the others aboue mentioned If you be not then haue you erected a new Protestant Church of late different from all Protestant Churches afore in Being If you be of the same fayth must you not then confesse that your Religion teacheth disobedience and disloyalty to your Prince Secondly it is ouer manifest that the Church of England I speake of some members thereof only not of all doth stand most chargeable with the same crime In proofe of which point I will produce the testimony of your former Archbishop of Canterbury D. Bancroft who in one of his Books thus confesseth of English Ministers concerning this point saying I omit their desperate courses of deposing Princes and putting them to death in diuers cases of resistance against reformation The generall summe was this That if the soueraigne Magistrate refuse to admit it the Ministers the inferiour Magistrate the People c. might set it oâ— fooâ—e themselues Of these and such like arguments diuers bookes he meaning made by English protestants were allowed by the Ministers of Geneua to be there then printed in English and to be published in England c. And againe the said Archbishop in an other of his Books speaking of the seditious English Protestants in Queene Maryes tyme thus writeth Goodman Whitingam Gilby the authour of the booke of Obedience with the rest of the Geneua Complices in Queene Maryes dayes urged all states by degrees rather to take armes and to reforme Religion themselues then to suffer such Idolatry Superstition remayne in the Land But to descend more particularly to this Goodman He was a forward Protestanâ— in Queene Maryes tyme did write a booke of this very subiect as D. Bancroft and D. Succliffe affirme Thus hereof he wryteth as D. Bancroft alleadgeth his sentences If Magistrats transgresse Gods Lawes and commanâ— others to do the like then haue they loâ—â— honour and obedience and ought no more to be taken for Magistrats but to be examined accused condemned c. And more It is not sufficient for subiects not to obâ—y the wicked Commandements of their wicked Princes but to withstand them also And yet more plainly Euill Princes ought by the lawes of God to be deposed To abbreuate this vnpleasing subiect there was also in the said times an other Booke made against the authority of Princes and entituled Of Obedience Which booke is much disliked by D. Bancroft and D. Succliffe in which booke we thus read Kings haue their authority from the People and by occasion the People may take it away agayne And more By the word of God in a manifest defection meaning of fayth and Religion a priuate Man hauing some speciall inward motion may kill a tyrant Marke you not how he doth Rauiliac it And finally It is lawfull to kill wicked Kings and Tyrants But I will wade no further in this argument For I much feare that the afore vnheard and now vnexpected recitall of the former Protestants doctrines is most displeasing to the eares of this honorable Iudge Only I must note that among the aboue mentioned Protestants some do speake with more respect and honour of Princes others with aâ—â— contempt and disgrace yet all of them alledged do with one the same eye or countenance indifferently looke vpon this principle to wit That Princes in some cases may be deposed such a dispacity we find in this their generally acknowledged Conclusion So in the pourtrayture of diuers mens faces we obserue great disproportion in one and the same proportion LORD-CHEIFE IVSTICE Michaeas I must confesse that these Doctrines of the former learned Protestants touching the deposing of Princes are most strange and indeede distastfull vnto me But it well may be that
either the places by your inâ—ertions and additions are corrupted or that you haue violated them by diuorcing the words from their true intended Sense Which sense of their no doubt is different from that meaning and Construction which you haue imposed vpon them But to confes my ignorance I haue not at any ty 〈…〉 râ—d the former Authours And therefore I must refer this poynt for my fuller satisfaction to the iudgment of M. Vice Chancelour here present MICHAEAS I do assure your 〈◊〉 in all sincerity that the testymonyes of the former Protestaâ—ts are truly aledged without any s 〈…〉 〈…〉 ertion either of the Words or sense And hearein I appeale euen to M. Vice-Chancelour owne iudgment who if he can change me with any such willfull imposture but in any one of the passages aboue I will acknowledge my selfe guilty in all Besydes all the former Authours are long since departed out of this World and therefore my fault if any such were should be far more odious and insupportable since Christian Charity teacheth vs to treade gently vpon the graues of the deade VICE-CHANCELOVR Suppose Michaeas that we should grant that all the former Protestants did teach as you haue produced them for to speak the truth I cannot take any iust exception against your allegations and the lesse seeing I find some of our owne Brethren by you alledged and particularly D. Bancroft and D. Succlif to acknowledge with discontent their said sentences Yet seeing they were but certaine Metaphysicall and aery speculations only of Schollars men vnapt for a mes and Rebellions and not of any acting spirits Their doctrinall Comminations therefore as neuer being accompanied with any externall Acts of disloyalty are to be reputed the lesse dangerous to Princes and Magistrats And thus in regard hereof it may be truly said that the errour of those former Protestants hearein was but small though the poynt about the which they erred was great But the Case is far otherwyse with you Papists who do not only teach and warrant rebellion by your doctrine but also haue actually practized the same with greate effusion of innocent bloud to the amazement of all Christendom and irreparable dishonour of your owne Religion MICHEAS I will here speake with the Poët M. Vice Ch. mutatio nomine de te fabula narratur Since these your words do â—ustly recoyle vpon your selfe and your Religion And therefore euen to choake you irreplyably hearein I will present to your view the tragicall deplorable face of many stats and Countryes in Christendom ingendred from the former Protestants Principles In the contemplation whereof we shall find it a Mistery euer peculiar to diuers Protestant stats to cast of their loyalty and obedience that so either by one meanes or other they would either fynd right or make right to violate the bond of all souerainty as men speake of Hercules breaking Gorgons knot with whom it hath beene vsuall to grow wanton in shading of bloud for the more speedy establishment of their Gospell to the end then that these former doctrinal Theorems of Rebellion shall not become meare aery as it pleseth you M. Vice-Ch to tearme them I will truly and really incorporate them in diuers most lamentable Insurrections and outrages perpetracted by Protestant subiects against their Catholicke Princes Many of which Rebellions did receaue their first Conception and after their byrth euen from the violent incitemeÌ„ts and instigations made by diuers of the afore alledged Protestants Wryters in the mynds of the subiects against their Catholicke Leige Lords And in showing this I will first begine with England then Scotland and so I will passe to other more remote Countryes Now touching England Do wee not find that the aforenamed L. Archbishop D. Bancroft speaking of the attempts made in Q. Maryes tyme for aduancing of the Protestants Religion thus wryteth Sundry Englishmen did wryte hither meaning from Geneua sundry letters and books of this subiect That the Councellours of Q. Maries tyme Noblemen Inferiour Magistrats and rather then fayle the very People were bound before God to ouerthrowe superstition and reforme Religion whether Q Mary would or no yea Though it were by putting her to death And according herto we thus reade in the former booke of Obedience By Gods law and Mans lawe Q. Mary ought to be put to death as being a Tyrant a Monster and a cruell beast O poore and titulary soueraignty that is forced in these mens iudgments to be thus subiect to it owne subiects and to endure those opprobrious and contumelious tearmes from any one obscure Superintendent which ciuill Conuersation forbiddeth amonge Men of the meanest ranke and quality No supreme domination and rule whearewith Princes are inuested is lyke to hym from whom it selfe originally first streameth that is Absolute and independent and brooketh not the controule of any such whom God hath subiugated to it by lawfull subiection But to proceede from these former and other such elements and Principles of Treason it came to passe that one Wiltin Thomas with others conspyred to murther Q Mary for which offence he was hanged drawne and quartered that D. Crammer Archbishop of Canterbury partly for spreading seditious Books and cheifly vnder pretext of Religion for ayding the D. of Northumberland with horse and Men was sent to the Tower arraigned in the starrchamber attaynted of High Treason Finally that S. Thomas Wyat seconded with the D. of Suffoch attempted his treason against the said Q Mary only vnder the colour of erecting Protestancy But to leaue England and to come to Scotland Who is ignorant that Knox being instructed in this Art at Geneua returned into Scotland attempting to reforme Religion euen by open rebellion and force of armes and murthering the Cardinall in his bedchamber at S. Andrewes was conuented to appeare before the Queene Regent and for not appearing was proclaymed Rebell In like sort D. Bancroft thus further wryteth of Knox and his Confederats and followers They kept the field two months and tooke away to themselues the coyning irons and iustifyed the same c. They gaue the Queene the lye diuers tymes and vsed her with most despiâ—full speeches and reâ—ounced their obedience vnto her and depryued her of all further regiment by formall Act penned by Knoâ— The said D. Bancroft thus further enlargeth himselfe touching Knox and hi followers saying By the perswasion of Knox in his Sermon they did cast downe and destroy â—t S. Andrews both the houses of the Eryars and the Abbeys in that towne So dealâ— they with the Abbey of Scone the Fryars at Steâ—cling Luâ—quo and Edenburrough the Queene being fled thence for feare Thus D. Bancroft of these mens proceedings who not content in afflicting the said Queene in such rebellious a manner further extended their malice and Disloyalty in so high a degree to the last Queene of Scotland as that his deceased Maiesty her Sonne thus complayned thereof How
they vsed speakind of Knox and his Confederats that poore Lady my Mother is not vnknowne and with greife I may remember it Touching Geâ—enna Goneuâ— I would say but the mistaking is not great since what the one teacheth the other punisheth We find that D. 〈…〉 lâ—ste thus truly writeth They of eneua did depose their Liegt Lord who was Catholicke Prince from his temporall right albeit he was by right of succession the temporall Lord and owner of that Citty and Territorie Which whom conspireth D. Bancroft thus wryting hereof The Citizens of Geneua receauing some good encour agement meaning from Caluin and such others I doubt not tooke vpon them the endeauouring of altering Religion and omitted not the occasion offered of changing also the Estate of the Commonwealth In this next place the 〈…〉 ow Countryes affoard a greater euidency and demonstration of this point For Oâ—iander a most eminent Protestant thus woundeth his owne Professours The Low Countreyes by publike wryting renounced all obedience and subiection to Philip their Lord and King c. When foure hundred of them men of good ranke had sued for tolleration in religion and did not preuayle the impatient People stirred vp with fury at Antwerp and other places of Holland Zâ—land and Pladders threw and broake downe images c. The y subiects of those Countreyes tooke armes against the Magistrate and made the Prince of Orange their Gouernour A truth in like sort confessed by D. Sarauia in these words They of the Low Countryes did ouerthrow and spoyle temples and monasteryes with Monks Bishops and the whole popish Cleargy against the mind of the cheife Magistrate and promâ—se giuen Finally Crispinus the Protestant and the foresaid Osiander do relate that one Petrus Dathenus and other cheife Protestants of Gauâ—t did stir vp in the yere 1587. the Ciâ—tizens to cast all the Masse Priests as they speake and Monks out of the Citty and to place their goods in the Treasury Next let vs come to France What ciuill Warrs haue beene raized by the Protestants during the space of forty yeares togeather till the last King Henry the fourth made himselfe Catholicke only for their Religion against their Catholicke Kings and Princes Many historyes are become the subiect thereof only I will content my selfe with discerning some few testimonyes and confessions of the Protestants heerein And first may occuâ—re the battayle of Dreux wherat Beza himselfe was present vndertaken only for the aduancement of the Protestant Religion and of which Battayle Beza thus writeth The Nobility of France vnder the noble Prince of Condy layd the foundation of the restoring true Religion in France by consecrating most happily their bloud to God in the battayle of Dreux In like sort we thus reede in a Protestant booke entituled The generall Inuentory of the History of France and translated into English by Ed. Grimston The Protestants of Meaux transported with indiscreete zeale grounded vpon their numbers did fly to the Churches beate downe images and make the Priests retyre And againe Beza preaching at Grenoble Charters and Orleans with his sword and pistoll in his hand exhorted the people to show their manhood rather in killing the Papists then in breaking Images And yet more The Protestants to wit anno 1567. being first armed were in the beginning maysters of the field c. The King being incensed agaynst them was at Meâ—ux and preparing to celebrate the feast of S. Michael the Prince of Condy approaching with fiue hundred horse by this attempt forced the King to retyre with some amazement to Paris And yet further The Prince of Condy and the Admirall kept S. Denis S. Owen and Auberuilliers to curbe Paris The Constable the Kings Lieutenant gathered an Army whereupon bartayle eâ—sued c. Which Authour of the aforementioned Inuentory of France relateth many more occurrents of those matters which here for breuity are omitted But to proceede further touching the Country of France Osiander the foresaid Protestant recordeth this matter in these words The Protestants vnder colour of exhibiting a Confession of their fayth came armed to the Kings palace c. That ciuill warre for Religion was renewed the Prince of Condy being Generall of those of the reformed Churches and the Constable Generall of the Kings Army That the Constable being slayne in these warres the Kings Brother supplyed his place To conclude this point of the Prince of Condy his rebellion herein It is so euident vndeniable that Crispinus a Protestant thus writeth hereof After many messages though in vayne sent by the King to the protestant Princes the warre beganne againe For the Prince of Condy rose vp in armes and swore not to leaue them vnder whose protestation this sentence was placed Deo victricibus armis This lamentable subiect of Protestant Subiects rysing against their Catholicke Princes hath busied my tongue very long Therefore I passe ouer how in Basil a cheife Citty in Heluetia a great dissention did ryse betweene the Burgâ—sses certaine of the Senatours for cause of Religion only as Crispinus relateth And how the Burgesses hauing taken armes forced the others to agree to what they demanded and thereupon they did cast downe Images and how twelue Senatours fauoring our Catholicke Religion were cast out of the Senate and how the Masse was first by these meanes abandoned throughout all that Sâ—gnory Also I pretermit the dolefull passages of this nature practized in Sweâ—eland of which Country Cythreus a Protestant thus relateth Sigismond being King of Sweueland by hereditary succession was constrayned to giue his assent that none should beare office in that Kingdome but such only meaning Protestants as retayned the Confession of Augusta He further saith thus They forced the King to content himselfe with exercise of his Catholicke Religion in his owne Chappell A truth so well knowne confessed that Osiander thus speaketh of it in generall tearmes The Protestants of Sweueland did decree that the exercise of Popish Religion should be banished out of all parts of that Kingdome c. Finally I passe ouer with a gentill â—uche what the Kingdome of Palonia hath suffered in this kynd of which poynt the foresaide Protestant Osiander thus writeth Certaine of Polonia did out of an vntymely zeale expell their Priests with great violence and sedition without expecting permission as the said Authour confesseth of the Kinge Thus far most worthy Iudge I haue proceeded contrary to the byas of myne owne naturall disposition in relation of these lamentable I lyads as I may tearme them but I am to be pardoned since the vpbrading importunity of M. Vice-Chancelour did compell me thearto from which former Examples we may gather that for diuers yeres past most Nations of Christendome haue become the sable and mournfulle Theaters or stages whereupon so many blouddy Tragedyes haue bene acted or rather the very shambles whearein haue bene
autem crucis And then thinke what greife it were that this Soule through want of true fayth should returne to it former thraldome Alas my L. Is 〈…〉 not greate pitye to see diuers yong students of eleuated Witts and apprehencsions either to receaue their Religion which they beleiue to be true from the bare affiance and trust of their Readers and Maysters without any further examining or tryall of it Or els litle to pryze any Religion at all And thus in this later maner this poore Materia Prima being Formlâ—sse is ready indifferently and without choyce to entertayne the impression of any Religion Now is it not great pitye I say to suffer these Soules to perish eternally as not hauing an articulate perfect Christian fayth Which fayth ought so to be qualified seing it auayleth litle to beleiue in Christ except we beleiue truly in Christ For though fayth be heare to be requyred yet a false fayth is as preiudicial as a meare Misbeleiffe So light is more necessary to the eye then darknes yet not being well proportioned is more dangerous to the eye then darknes And indeed my L. I must confesse that I do more fully glasse their danger in my owne former want of fayth when I continued a lew And am in this respect more ready to imparte the benefit of that to others of which my selfe haue allready so fully tasted Now for this my attempt my selfe being an Alien I must shrowd it vnder the wings of the lyke atteÌ„mpts of S. Peter and other the Apostles who were not afrayd to go by our Lords commandement into strange Countreyes to preach teach the faith of Christ Euntes in mundum vniuersum praedicate Euangelium omni Creaturae And my good Lord I must therefore further say that though a Zeraphicall and burning zeale in this kind may in an humane eye seeme to be but a kind of madnes And that high Vertues of this Nature through want of due consideration do rather offend then please yet since the Apostles did first tract this vnusuall path their example hath more emboldned me to tread herein their stepps VICE-CHANCELOVR Good God See vnto what an assent of impiety Mans nature is arryued I meane heere not only to do euill but to make the Holy Apostles patrons of the said euill No Michaeas As soone may the Idoll Dagon stand by the Arke as your pernitious Machinations beare affinity with the actions of the Apostles You preach not Christ but Antichrist and you must remember that Christ himselfe said Who gathereth not with me scatereth MICHAEAS M. Vice-Chancelour I see you much labour to haue the aduantage of the day against mee so willing you are that I should lye prostrate with the basest shame Yet my comfort is that Innocency though oppressed still continues Innocency But to come to the poynt What haue I donne which the glorious Apostles may not seeme to haue donne They went into forayne Countryes without any peculiar licence of the Princes of them to preach the Gospell of Christ I heare being a stranger haue aduentured to initiate some students in the fayth of Rome which is the sole true fayth of Christ They preached peaceably without raising of tumults or teaching disobedience against the Prince of the Country I did yet neuer intimate in my words or actions the least spote of disobedience against the supreme Magistrate since I hould it a mighty errour to seeke â—o order things by disorderly courses They most happely pulled thousands of Soules out of the iawes of the Deuil I do confesse my sole end was to do some good in that kynd if so God would vouchsafe to blesse therein my endeuours And most ioyfull I should be if through my owne labour vnder Christ I might say but of any one straying Soule with the good Father in the Gospell This my sonne was dead but is reuyued was lost and is found Breifly theâ— for such their accheiuements finished their dayes in most blâ—ssed Martyrdomes O that might be so happy as to â—edeâ—me â—y maninfold 〈◊〉 with so glorious a death so true is that sentence The bloud of Martirs is the key of Paradise Heere now my good L. Yf you condemne me how can you free them Therefore either absolue me with them or accuse them with me Since all of vs be either guilty or all Innocent Yf guilty I glorye to haue such Precedents of this my imaginary Cryme Yf innocent Why then do I stand at this wofull barre of Iustice pleading if not for lyfe at least for Liberty LORD-CHEIFE IVSTICE Although these your molitions and endeauours Michâ—as may seeme to proceede from a feruour and zeale Yet I feare this your zeale is branded with those words of S. Paul Aemulationem Dei habent sed non secundum scientiam Since diuers Men haue certaine impetuosityes and violent straynes of Nature which because in their owne priuate conceats they meane well they feare not to guild ouer with the fayre title of Christian zeale Againe Michâ—as wheare you seeke to sheyld your attempts vnder the example of the Apostles your mistaking heare is ouer grosse since they preached the incontaminated and vnspoted fayth of Christ and weare therefore not only excusable but euen warranted by the Holy Ghost Whereas you do teach a religion mixted with diuers errours and humane Inuentions and therefore farre different from that first planted by the Apostles MICHAEAS My Lord. What colours soeuer of disgrace and contumely may in an other Mans eye be layed vpon theese my actions yet to my selfe I am best priuy that they proceeded from my sole desire of aduancing the fayth of Christ and from the bent of a strong affection and loue towards hym Amor meus pondus meum illo feror quocunque feror Which loue and promptitude ought to be so intense and vehement as that indeede it cannot transgresse any bounds within which it may seeme to be limited And therefore I heare hold it an extreame to seeke in these actions to auoid the Extreame where the Excesse if any such can be putteth on the nature of the Meane O my Lord when the Apostle did write those fiery words Praedica Verbum insta oportunè importunè argue obsecra increpa c. No doubt he taught vs thereby that in the preaching of the true Christian fayth we should performe it with all improperation speedines and alacrity not loosing the tyme in any ceremonious delayes Now my Lord where you say that the fayth taught by me is different from the fayth first planted by the Apostles I hereto answere though most breifly since this tyme is not capable of any long Discourse Yf that Christian Religion wherewith Rome was first cultiuated tilled by the labours of the Apostles did neuer since that time to this day suffer the least change in any dogmaticall materiall poynt Then followeth it ineuitably that our present Catholick ReligioÌ„ is the same which was preached by the
Sacerdotal 〈…〉 h 〈…〉 tye of remitting of sinns in the Sacrament of Confession and of celebrating the most reuerend and incruent Sacrifice of the Masse subiects against which many Protestants so bitterly 〈…〉 both with tongue and penne Now if Gods 〈◊〉 Wâ—â—t partly deliuered in a propheticall spirit and partly by our Sauiours 〈◊〉 and Apostles touching the former poynts Yf the vninterrupted practize of Gods Church answearable to those diuine Oracles Yf the learned Monuments of the Primatiue Fathers in the Churches Infancy contesting or rather deposing the same Yf the Ecclesiasticall Historyes recording the euenâ—s sorting to all the former proâ—ffs and authorityes Finally if your owne Brethrens free Confessions in their wrytings to their owne irreperable preiudice warranting the same cannot induce many of you to beleiue the truth of the Articles aboue discussed then can I but dispaire of your bettering by perusing the former disputes and can but coÌ„miserate your irremediable states in the words of the Prophet spoken to Israell Insanabilis â—ract 〈…〉 a pessima pâ—â—ga tua but if you be such as I haue fiâ—ured out to my selfe Men professing Candor and ingenuitie thirsting after your owne Saluation desirous to embrace the Truth once found out and chorninâ— any lonâ—er to liue and implicit and blynd assent without further 〈◊〉 and search to your grand Maysters Theorems then I am in good hope that these my Labours may wunne some ground vpon your iudgments and that you will make good in yourself that senteÌ„ce of our Lord and Sauiour Iustificata est sapientia a fil 〈…〉 suis I will speake playnly vnto you because I affect you in true Christian Charity and pittie it is that such-transcendent Spirits should for euer perish You are created to enjoy Eternitye Spurne there at those temporary illaqueations whearwith the soule i accustomed to be detayned from her cheifest Good You are through the force of Christs Passion 〈…〉 borne Coheyâ—es to the Kinâ—dome of God Why then will you longer seede with the Prodicall Sonne vpon the husks of wordly deliâ—hts and pleasures say eich of you rather with an auncient Father Mihi â—amulo Create is murd 〈…〉 us si non tamen Deus mundi Et igo Mundo non tamen Deo mundi Pray with in â—â—slant and feruerous eiaculations of spirit by which meanes he will no dowbt of new become present to you who at all tymes is present that his Diuine Maiesty would vouchsafe to remoue from your eyes as he did from the corporal eyes of the Apostle the scales of partiality and preiudice in matters of fayth the most dangerous rocke of the soules eternall naufrage Do not still perseuer in vp â—raidinâ— the Catholicks with Superstition Idolatrie Antichristianisme relyinge on humane inuentions and disualewing of the most precious sufferings of our 〈◊〉 no. These are but our Aduersaryes impostures and Calumnyes forged to ensware the ignorant For we all most willingly acknowledg that the bloudy wounds of a sinfull soule are cured only by the bloudy passaues of Christ his Passion thus we teach and beleiue that bloud heare stancheth bloud and Death through ouerthrow of death raise Men from death Mors â—ortua tunc est in ligno quando mortua vita fuit But to returne more particularly to the former Dialogues I do probably preâ—age that perhaps some one or other of your learned Professours will vndertake to answeare theese my Wrytings Therefore let me premonish that man cheifly of three Things First that whereas theare are in the three former discourses almost a thousand Testimonies of all sorts of authorities produced some immediatly and others by necessary inferrence prouing the Catholicks Poynts aboue treated of That therefore he would not forbearing in policy to answeare the authorities flee a new to the state of the question being allready acknowledged on all sides and to other extrauagancyes of discours and all to with draw by such subtill transitions his Reader from the poynt issuable which is whether the former Conâ—rouerâ—ed Questions do receaue their full prousse from my alledged testimonies or no 〈◊〉 Secondly that whereas the greatest part of the aboue alledged authorities are taken from the protestants Confessions and acknowledgments they mainly thearby wounding their owne Religion That the Replyar for the auoyding of the force of their authorities would not seeke to oppose other Protestants denying that which they confesse since this Kynd of euadingâ—s most weake as is intimated allready in the second Dialogue in that the Protestants alledged by me are the most remarkable Protestants that euer did wryte and do confesse to their owne preiudice and against the 〈◊〉 which they neuer would do but that the euidency of the Truth enforceth them thear to Whereas thus others which perhaps the Replyar may pro 〈…〉 ce are Men of meaner ranke and speake in their owne behalfe and therefore as compacted of impudency and boldnes their tonâ—ues and pe 〈…〉 ns stand at all tymes ready charged to speake and wryte by affirming of chings thou 〈…〉 neuer so false for the supporting of their owne Cause Thirdly and lastly that in answearing to the testimonyes and Confessious he would take them in order as they lye and not omit any as otherwyse hoping that is regard of the â—â—ltitude of the testimonyes the sluggish yauning Reader would easely swalow such ouersights of Omisions For heare I aduertize the Replyar a forehand That presently vpon the first comming out of his Answeare I will make a short Cathalogue of all the testimonyes and Confessions omitted by hym if any such he shewing to what end the sayd Testimonyes were particularly produced And will cause this Cathalogue within few dayes after atleast few weeks for I will not stay for months to be printed and d 〈…〉 for the present s 〈…〉 of the Readers thirst till further oportunity be geuen for confuting of his answeare at large And thus I dowbt not but the Sunne of the Replyars same end worth which may seeme perhaps so gloriously to ryse at the first appearance of his most learned answeare forsooth within th 〈…〉 tyme after if any of the former premonished â—leiâ—hts and collusions be vsed thearein wil be forced to set in a Cloud of his owne disgrace and disreputation Neither let that Man think that the s 〈…〉 of his Booke with greeke sentences or the hayling in of certaine mysapplyed and g 〈…〉 beaded Apotheges of some one or other old and outworne Philosophâ—â— an Idiome peculiar to most Protestant Wryters must carye the maâ—ter But it must be a 〈…〉 and sincere coaâ—s of answearing which at this tyme can satisfy But now Cel 〈…〉 Academicks taking my last leaue of you all I will heare cease but will neuer cease to power out my dayly prayers to the most Blessed and vâ—deuided for your encrease of all vertues but particularly for true and orthodoxall fayth that â—o you being gratefull in the siâ—ht of the three diuine Persons God the Father would vouchsafe
Bible vpoÌ„ that chapter o In huÌ„c locum p â—ranct 1. in epist Ioannis q See the marginall notes of the English bibles of anno 1576. In Esay 2. r Tract 2. in epist in Ioan. s Against the Rhemish Test in Eph. 4. t Contra Duraeum l. 3. p. 249. u In Synops Papisin p. 71. x Contra Duraeum l. 3. p. 260. y Against Heskins Sanders c p. 569. a Fulke vbisupra p. 536. In his answere to a contersayte Catholicke p. 11. c Propositions and principles disputed in the vniuerâ—ily of Geneua p. 845. d C. 72. e Iacob in his reasons tâ—ken out of Gods word p. 2â— f In his Synops p. 54. g Ierem. 33. h Esay 66. i Daniel 2. k Esay â—0 l Reg. 〈◊〉 m Daniel 9. n 2. Thâ—ss 2. o 12. p Hebrâ— 4â— 8. q In corpore doctrinae p. 530. r In his soueraigne remedy p. 17. s In 24. Mâ—chaeâ— t Vbi Chrysost u Epist 88. ad Esichium x l. 20. de ciuitat Deuâ— 19. y BullenleÌ„ger in his preface to his SermoÌ„s vpon the Apocalyps As also the Protestant Scâ—lio in his booke of the second comming of Christ fol. 21. z C. 4. a Against the Rhemish Testament in 2. Thessal 2. b Vbi supra c Vpon the Apocal. sol 200. d In â—aâ— analyt p. 368. e Homil. 30. â—in Mathâ—eum f L. de vnitate Eccle. g Homil. 4. in cap. 6. Ioan. h Contra faustum Manich. lib. 1. i Contra lit Precil 〈◊〉 2. c. 32. k Tract 1. in epist Ioannis l Tract 2. in epist Ioannis m Peter Martyr in Com. place in English part 2. pag. 594. saith The Iewes though they be kept in so great aduersity c. yet they hould stil their Religion n Se hereof Caelius Secundus Curio l. de amplit regnâ— Dei l. 1. p. 65. and the Century writers in the 4. chapter of euery Century p lib. â—de simplicit Praelat q Epist 1. ad Damasum de nomine Hypostasis r l. 4. de Baptism c. 2. s Institâ— 4. 1. sect 4. t in concil Theol. part 2. u in loc com edit 1561. c. de Ecclesia x Melan. vbi supra y in his Treatise of freewill p. z in his booke against Hosius p. 210. a in his booke of the visible Church b in his booke of Ecclesiast policy p. 126. c in his Epist annexed to his CommoÌ„ places printed in English p. 153. d l. 1. of the Church c. 10. p. 19. e vbi supra p. 21. Iesuitis in part 2. c. 3. g In his answere to a Popish Pamphlet p. 11. * D. Fulkde successione Eccles p. 89. h in Epist Euchar i loc tit de Iudaeis col 390. k In his suruey c. 〈◊〉 l Lib. 4. c. 14. m Orat. de S. Basil n Vir 〈…〉 c sol 156. d sol 132. e fol. 132. f fol. 128. h 116. i fol. 117. k so 1â—9 l ibidem m fo 132. n fol. 115. o fol. 117. p fol. 4. q fol. 138 139. r fol. 14â— s fol. 142. t fol. 14◠¶ Luther epist ad Argentinenses ¶ Touching the sentences alledged in this passage out of Luthers writings the Reader is to obserue percisly the editions of his bookes here quored seeing in some later editions diuers of his said testimonyes are for very shame wholy omitted left out x Luther in purgat quoruÌ„dam Aâ—ticul in episi ad Georgium spalatinuÌ„ y Art 30. z Conclus 15. in disput Lipsica cum Echio a In 1. part operum formula caÌ„tè loquendaÌ„ cap. de Sanct. cultuâ— b In resp ad art Colloq Montisâ— part alt in prefat c Luther in epist ad ad Bohemos d In his refutation Caeremoniarum Missae printed Magdâ—â— 1603. p. 118. e Loc. 7. com pag. â—â—6 f In loc â—om class 1. c. 37. p. 107. * 〈◊〉 Cor. â— g Sorelateth Zwinglius of Luther tom 2. in respons ad confut Lutheri fâ— 474. h Luth. in encherid praecum anni 1543. i Luth. in postill maiori Basili 〈…〉 apud Heruagium in enarrat Euang Dominicae Trinit k Contra Iacobum Latomum tom 2. Wittenberg latine edit anno 1551. l Zwinglius tom 2. in respons ad Confess Lutheri m In assert damnat per Leonem art 36. n Luth. deseruo arbitrio c. 32. o Luther in Confess Maiore in Caena Domini p Vide Concil part 2. q In epist theologie epist 60. r Luth. tom 2. l. de ministris Eccles institue 〈…〉 lis fol. 368. 369. â—id l. de abrog Missa priuata tom 2. fol. 249. lib. de captiuit Babilon c. de ordine s These be D. Couelis words in his defence of M. Hooker art 15. p. 101. t In hist Sacrament part altera fol. 14. u Luth. de seculari potest in tom 6. german x Luth. in tom 7. Wit tenberg fol. 327. y Luther praesai in epist Iacobi edit 4. Ienensi z Vpon the Apocalyps englished c. 1. serm 1. fo 2. a Tom. 3. Wittenberg in Psal 45. fol. 423. b In epist ad Galaâ— 1. tom 5. Wittenb of anno 1554. fol. 290. c Luth. in tom 2. WitteÌ„berg In assert damnat per Leonâ— decimum assert 34. d In ep ad fratres Inferioriâ— Germaniae e Luther vpon the Galat. englished in c. 2. And see Luther in his Sermons englished fol. 204. f Luther tom 1. Prop. 3. g In his Sermons englished p. 147. h Luth. ibid. pag. 276. i In his Apol. Cathol p. 42. k Lib. de Eccles contraâ— Bellarm. controuers 2. quaest 5. l In his Apolog. of the Church part 4. c 4. m In ep ann 36. ad Episc Hereford n In theolog Caluinist l. 2. fol. 130. o Tract de Eccles pag. 145. p Act. mon. pag. 190. q In his Treatise of Antichrist p. 40. r Act. Mon. p. 260. s Fox in Apocalyps c. 11. pag. 290. t In colloquijs Germ. c. de Antichristo u Act. mon. 230. Art 1. 2. x In epitom Cent. 15. p. 469. y Act. mon. printed 1596. pag. 391. z In his booke of the state of the Church pag. 418. a Fox vbi suprà b In his Annals of England printed 1591. p. 425. c Wicklef in postilla super 15. cap. Marci meÌ„tioneth all the seauen sacrameÌ„ts And in postilla super 1. Cor. cap. 1. he writeth as is here set downe d Wicklef serm de Assumpt Mariae e Wicklef de Eucharist c. 9. f In his Annals printed 1592. p. 426. g As witnesseth Oâ—iand CeÌ„t. 15. p. 457. h Cent. 6. 10. 11 c. p 459. aâ—t 43. i In ep ad Fredericum Miconium k Act mon. p 96. art 4. l Epitom hâ—st Cent. 9. 10. 11. aâ—t 4. m Tom. 3. c. 7 8. 9. n Osiander in epitom hist CeÌ„t. 9. 10. â—1 12. o Mâ—lancthon vbi supra p As witnesseth Sâ—ow vbi supra q In Chronol p. 119. r Melancthon vbi supra s Act. Mon. p. 95. t Ioan. â— u Act.